Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE

Earnings Rule (Luncheon Vouchers)

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he will introduce legislation to clear up in favour of the pensioner the anomaly whereby luncheon vouchers are counted as earnings for the purposes of the application of the earnings rule, although they are not counted as income for the purposes of assessing Income Tax.

The Minister of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Niall Macpherson): No, Sir. As my hon. Friend knows, the calculation of net earnings for the purposes of benefit adjustments is for independent statutory authorities. While these authorities have ruled that payments in kind should be included, they have also ruled that particular expenses, such as fares to and from work which do not rank for Income Tax relief, should be de-

ducted. My hon. Friend should not assume that the adoption of the Income Tax rules in calculating the earnings of employed pensioners would in every ease produce results more favourable to them.

Mr. Iremonger: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, might I suggest that the object of the operation is not to apply them all but to apply those rules which would benefit the pensioner? Could not my right hon. Friend stretch a point, because it seems that the pensioner here is suffering from the double-headed penny, which is very much resented?

Mr. Macpherson: As I have indicated, they have some advantages, in a comparison with Income Tax, and some disadvantages. The Commissioner has ruled that earnings for National Insurance benefit purposes include payment in kind. Indeed, if we are to apply the earnings rule at all, it seems difficult to say that those who get payments in kind should have them disregarded and so be that much better off than those who do not get anything.

Miss Herbison: Surely the right hon. Gentleman will give further consideration to this? It is not only the retired people who suffer from this disability, but widows who perhaps are working in a school meal service and get a school lunch and find that this is added to their earnings and their pension is cut accordingly. It seems a great hardship that so many other people at the other end


can get so much Income Tax relief on expense accounts. This really would not involve a great sum of money.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are constantly being told that supplementary questions must be shorter.

Mr. Macpherson: It might not involve a great deal of money, but it would involve a certain amount of unfairness between those who get benefits in kind and those who do not.

Re-establishment Centres

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance how many National Assistance Board re-establishment centres there are in Great Britain; how many men have been trained for new jobs at these centres; and how many have been admitted since the centres opened.

Mr. N. Macpherson: Three, Sir. These centres are provided under Section 16 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, for men who have been unemployed for a long time in order to fit them for re-entry into regular work. I am informed by the Board that 2,784 men passed through the centres between June, 1951 and December 1962; that 1,013 were placed in employment from the centres; and that many others are known to have obtained work shortly after leaving.

Mr. Davies: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that answer. Can he now tell us the name of the third centre? In the 1960 Report we had West Hill and Henley-in-Arden. What is the name of the third centre? Finally, is the Minister aware of public perturbation about conditions in these camps? Can he assure the House that conditions are quite normal for the men and that they really are rehabilitated and their time is not wasted?

Mr. Macpherson: The third centre is at Brady House, Stepney, which is a non-residential re-establishment centre.
With regard to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, this is an extremely difficult problem. The object is to rehabilitate men and restore them to the habit and discipline of work commensurate with their strength. If the hon. Gentleman would like to visit any of these centres, the National Assistance Board would gladly show him round.

Mr. Davies: I might take up that offer.

Mr. Mitchison: Is there such a centre in Scotland? If not, ought not there to be one?

Mr. Macpherson: This is under consideration at the present time.

Miss C. C. Thomson

Mr. Strachey: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance if he is aware that Miss C. C. Thomson, whose papers have been submitted to him, was placed in medical category A on enlistment, was subsequently downgraded to category C2 within six months of enlistment, and was retained in the service for three more years; and, in view of the fact that Miss Thomson is now suffering from Cushing's syndrome which appears to have been partly due to Service life, why he will not grant her a pension.

Mr. N. Macpherson: I am aware of the facts stated in the first part of the Question. I cannot award a pension under the Royal Warrant to Miss Thomson because the Pensions Appeal Tribunal disallowed her claim on appeal and I am bound by its decision, which is by Statute final.

Mr. Strachey: Is not the Minister aware that further medical evidence was presented to him and, as he has stated to me, he is able to review these cases if the medical evidence is presented? Does not he agree that either Miss Thomson was suffering from this distressing disease when she enlisted, in which case she ought never to have been graded A 1 and deserves a pension, or she developed the disease later during her service—which is highly likely to have been attributable—in which case she ought to have been awarded a pension on this ground? Will not the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this very distressing case?

Mr. Macpherson: I agree that it is a distressing case, but the only kind of fresh evidence which could be considered is fresh medical evidence as opposed to a different view or opinion. I am informed that all the relevant facts were before the Tribunal at the time. It is, of course, quite possible for somebody to have the germ of a constitutional disease which cannot be diagnosed at the time of admission into the Services.

Mr. Strachey: What can fresh medical evidence be except a fresh medical opinion with a different view of the case? That has been submitted to the Minister.

Mr. Macpherson: I do not think that is so, with respect. The opinion that was submitted was based on a tentative hypothesis.

County Durham (Assistance)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what was the average weekly expenditure on National Assistance to recipients of assistance at offices of his Department in the County of Durham during the months of December, January and February last; and what were the comparable figures for the same months a year ago.

Mr. N. Macpherson: For the reason which I explained to the right hon. Gentleman on Monday last, it is not possible to give precisely the figures asked for. The National Assistance Board estimates, however, that regular weekly grants paid in the areas served by the Board's offices in County Durham in the months of December, January and February amounted to £168,000 as compared with£17,000 a year before.

Mr. Shinwell: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether his colleagues in the Government are aware of those figures? If not, will he inform them about the gravity of the situation and the substantial increase in these National Assistance payments?

Mr. Macpherson: We are certainly aware that there has been an increase in unemployment. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that special steps are being taken at the present time and that a Minister has been especially appointed to look after this area.

Industrial Diseases

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance what alterations and extensions have been made during each of the last ten years in the Schedule of the Industrial Diseases (Benefit) Act; whether he is satisfied that the present Schedule is sufficient to meet all the needs of modern industry, and in particular those industries relating to shipbuilding, shipping and

fisheries; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. N. Macpherson: As there have been some 23 complex additions over the past ten years to the Schedule of prescribed diseases under the Industrial Injuries Act, I am sending the information to the hon. and learned Member. The Schedule includes all the occupational diseases which on the information at present available satisfy the tests for prescription under Section 55 (2) of the Act. If the hon. and learned Member has in mind any particular condition not so far prescribed, I will gladly study any evidence he cares to send me.

Mr. Hughes: I shall send the Minister the particulars I have in mind? Does he realise that this is of tremendous importance to the industries mentioned at the end of my Question? In the statement he is proposing to send to me, will the right hon. Gentleman say when this Schedule was last examined; whether it was examined by experts, and what evidence was taken and with what result?

Mr. Macpherson: The Schedule is under continual examination. We have had reports from the Medical Research Council, and there is research in universities and research within industry. The Schedule is examined by the Advisory Council when submissions are made to it, and the Advisory Council can itself ask for submissions to be made to it. As the hon. and learned Gentleman will see, the last addition was made in 1961.

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, to what extent, in agreeing or refusing to schedule certain diseases as industrial hazards, he takes into account the incidence of these diseases amongst citizens outside the occupations concerned.

Mr. N. Macpherson: To the extent that I am required to do so by Section 55 (2) of the Industrial Injuries Act, 1946.

Mr. Swingler: Will the Minister look at this again? Should not he be exclusively concerned with cause and effect in industry and not with the proneness of people to contract a certain disease because they live in a smoke-polluted area? Will not he approach the question of emphysema on this basis?

Mr. Macpherson: This is precisely the way in which it is approached. But I am, of course, bound by the Industrial Injuries Act, and it is on those lines that I consider whether a disease should be prescribed or not.

Mr. Swingler: Did not the Minister refer last week to the fact that certain people outside the mining and pottery industries are prone to emphysema, and did not he seem to use this as a reason why he was reluctant to schedule emphysema as an industrial disease? Should not the right hon. Gentleman be exclusively concerned with causations in industry?

Mr. Macpherson: Before scheduling a particular disease in relation to insured persons, I am bound by the Act to consider whether it ought to be treated as arising from their occupations, having regard to its causes and incidence, rather than as a risk common to everyone. I cannot do so unless I consider the incidence among the population as a whole. But that is only one consideration, which is why I said, "To the extent I am required by the Act".

Glasgow (Assistance)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance how many recipients of National Assistance in the Glasgow area received increased payments between 22nd December, 1962, and 2nd March, 1963; what was the total monetary increase as compared with the same period a year ago; and if he will give the corresponding figures for the whole of Scotland.

Mr. N. Macpherson: It is not clear whether the hon. Member is referring to grants by way of a single payment to meet an exceptional need or to regular weekly additions to provide for special needs of various kinds. Information about the latter is available only on an annual basis for Great Britain as a whole and not for particulars areas or particular times of the year. As the information in regard to single payments in the Glasgow area and in Scotland contains a number of figures, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Rankin: Can the right hon. Gentleman give one figure? Can he say how the total monetary payment during

the period I indicated compares with the total amount paid out a year ago?

Mr. Macpherson: At the Glasgow offices it was £15,465 up to 26th February, 1963, against £11,210 for the previous period; and the Scottish figures are more or less in line.

Mr. Rankin: Does not that figure show a rather shameful state of affairs, in view of the fact that during this period not only was Glasgow hit by heavy unemployment but by the coldest winter in the experience of most people? Does not it seem a shame that during that period people should obviously have received so little additional help from the National Assistance Board due to the action of the Minister?

Mr. Macpherson: This is certainly not due to the action of the Minister. The amounts payable are within the discretion of the Board, and these are the payments it decided were proper.

Following is the information:


SINGLE PAYMENTS OF NATIONAL ASSISTANCE TO MEET AN EXCEPTIONAL NEED IN SCOTLAND



Period


—
20th December, 1961–27th February, 1962
19th December, 1962–26th February, 1963


Glasgow offices:




Number
2,417
3,065


Total amount
£11,210
£15,465


Scotland as a whole:




Number
5,378
6,804


Total amount
£23,401
£31,697

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT INFORMATION SERVICES

Government Publicity

Sir T. Moore: asked the Minister without Portfolio what is his general policy in regard to publicising the proposals, policies, and achievements of Her Majesty's Government.

The Minister without Portfolio (Mr. W. F. Deedes): Such publicity is the responsibility of the Government as a whole, although in my capacity as Minister co-ordinating the home information


services I am always ready to advise Ministers on timing and presentation. Apart from Parliament, which is and must always be the principal forum for presenting the policies of Her Majesty's Government, I think there is no better method of giving them publicity than through the free institutions of the Press and broadcasting. I try to ensure they get all the facilities they need.

Sir T. Moore: I thank my hon. Friend for that informative reply. May we assume that he will give due publicity to the massive achievements of Her Majesty's Government which are so many, so varied and so beneficial, but yet are not properly and fully appreciated? At the same time, will he continue to bear in mind and give due weight to the imaginative policies shown by the Government?

Mr. Deedes: Yes, but I have to distinguish between Government information services, for which the taxpayer pays, and what the party is, and should be able to do for itself.

Mr. Ross: As the greatest achievement in Ayr at the moment is that the unemployment figure is higher than it has been since the war, will the Minister tell us whether, when issuing proposals and policies, he proposes to issue blank sheets of paper?

Mr. Deedes: The Government information services can be counted on to give the facts in their proper perspective.

Dame Irene Ward: Why does not my right hon. Friend "hit" the hon. Gentleman hard? I would hit him hard.

Journalists (Confidential Information)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. BROCKWAY: To ask the Minister without Portfolio what pledges are required of journalists and accredited Lobby correspondents by Government Departments when confidential information is provided.

Mr. Brockway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This Question deals with all Government Departments and not only the Home Department; in particular the Foreign Office. Therefore, it was put down to the Prime Minister. It has now

been transferred to the Minister without Portfolio. A good many hon. Members are becoming a little concerned because the Prime Minister so frequently transfers Questions to other Departments.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has been a Member of this House for quite a long time, if I may say so, and I think he knows that the transferring of Questions is not a matter for the Chair.

Mr. Deedes: None. Sir.

Mr. Brockway: Will the right hon. Gentleman be a little more forthcoming? Is he not aware that journalists and lobbyists when they go to Government Departments, and even when there in conversation with Ministers, are repeatedly requested not to convey the source of their information? As that is the case, is it not outrageous that the Government should now he committing two men to prison for declining to state the source of their information?

Mr. Deedes: The hon. Gentleman is raising matters somewhat wider than should be answered in terms of question and answer. I hope that we shall have an opportunity to discuss this and other matters. Meanwhile, the Press, and in particular the Lobby, have their own code of conduct which governs them in such dealings, and, as hon. Members on both sides know, they observe it.

Mr. Taverne: asked the Minister without Portfolio what instructions have been given to Ministers about giving confidential information to the Press.

Mr. Deedes: No special instructions have been given.

Mr. Taverne: As journalists have now been compelled to reveal their sources and have been imprisoned for not doing so, will the Minister advise other Ministers in future to keep records of confidential information they may give and to publish those records if required? If he does not intend to give this advice, will he say whether he accepts the non-disclosure of confidential information as an important point of principle and approves the stand taken by the imprisoned journalists?

Mr. Deedes: The hon. Gentleman raises matters somewhat wider than the Question. He is well aware that the


conduct of correspondents, Ministers and hon. Members on both sides is governed by a series of understandings which are well accepted by both parties, and I see no reason to accept the advice he has offered.

Mr. Fletcher: Would the hon. Gentleman say whether in his opinion the recent imprisonment of two journalists is likely to have any effect on the existing practice as between the Lobby and Ministers?

Mr. Deedes: No; frankly I do not think it will.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSPITALS

Women's Hospital, Birmingham (Land)

Mr. Seymour: asked the Minister of Health if he will exclude from the proposed sale of land at the Women's Hospital, Showell Green Lane, Birmingham, that area cultivated for many years by the Oakwood Road Allotment Society.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Bernard Braine): The land is part of the endowments of the United Birmingham Hospitals. My right hon. Friend has no control over its disposal.

Mr. Seymour: Is not my hon. Friend aware that this site has been cultivated for nearly fifty years and that it is the only land available for allotments in the area? Is he also aware that in 1959 when the allotment holders lost their natural supply of water, on an assurance that they would not be disturbed, they laid on a piped supply at the cost of £60? I know that this is an endowment, but it does belong to the Women's Hospital under the control of the Minister. Will he look again into this matter?

Mr. Braine: I note what my hon. Friend says, but I am sure that on reflection he will agree that the board of governors, as prudent trustees, should dispose of the land in a manner which will ensure obtaining the best price.

Mr. Harold Davies: On the question of the sale of land in and around hospitals, is the hon. Gentleman aware that valuable farms and valuable horticultural land are, because of Government policy, being sold and the hospitals have to buy in the private market the fresh vegetables

and fruit which hitherto they produced themselves? Would he look into this question at the same time?

Mr. Braine: I am not so aware, but if the hon. Gentleman has a particular instance, I will certainly look into it if he will provide me with details.

Fluothane

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Health if he has now concluded a new contract with Imperial Chemical Industries for the supply of the anesthetic fluothane to the hospital service; if the contract now includes a costings clause; and at what price a quarter litre bottle is now available to the hospitals.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Enoch Powell): A new contract has been made; no, Sir; it is against public policy to disclose an individual contract price.

Mr. Boyden: First, if a contract has been made, how can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it is a fair one if he does not know what the costings are? Secondly, why has there been all this delay—eighteen months—since the matter was first drawn to his attention and one year since the Public Accounts Committee first probed into the matter?

Mr. Powell: There are various ways of judging the reasonableness of a price, such as by comparison with the price in the export market. I am satisfied that, with the further reduction—a substantial one—under this contract, the public is getting a reasonable bargain.

Mr. Boyden: Will he again explain why there has been this delay?

Handicapped Children, Derby

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Health how many seriously handicapped children, resident in Derby, and in need of permanent hospital accommodation, have been on the waiting list for suitable vacancies for over 10 years, including those who have become of age since their names first went on the list.

Mr. Powell: None, so far as I am aware.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is the Minister aware that that is not in accordance with the information which I have received to the effect that there are children who have


been more than ten years on the waiting list? Does he not appreciate that this imposes very great hardship on the parents? Is it not disgraceful that they should be on the waiting list for so long?

Mr. Powell: I have looked at one or two individual cases, not I think actually from the Borough of Derby, that the right hon. Gentleman brought to my attention. If he and I might compare our information, I will do all that is in my power to help.

Mr. Noel-Baker: May I express my thanks to the Minister?

Nurses

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health what assurances he has given to the Royal College of Nursing about the provision of additional funds for nurse recruitment in the coming financial year; and to what extent such funds will be additional to the initial allocations made to hospital authorities.

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Minister of Health what assurances of additional financial provision for increased nursing staff he has given to the Royal College of Nursing, following a recent deputation from them; and if he will make a statement regarding his policy on this matter for the next financial year.

Mr. Powell: I am sending the hon. Members copies of my letter to the Royal College of Nursing. The additional spending power already allocated to Regional Boards will enable them to continue to increase nursing staff when necessary.

Mr. Robinson: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the assurances he has given to the Royal College of Nursing are utterly worthless, since the allocation for nursing salaries in the coming financial year is barely 2½yer cent. greater in money terms than the amount provided last year—an allocation which led to a most painful decline in nurse recruitment? Is it not quite clear that the hospitals will not be empowered to increase their nursing establishments by any noticeable proportion in the coming year?

Mr. Powell: The hon. Member is under a misapprehension. There are no specific allocations for nursing salaries,

and the additional purchasing power on constant prices and salaries in the coming year for the hospital service will enable hospitals, where additional nurses are required, to increase their numbers as they have been doing for the last eighteen months.

Dame Irene Ward: Would I be right in assuming that after a period of great obstinacy on the part of my right hon. Friend, having received a deputation from the Royal College of Nursing—and having been given all the evidence which that College had collected on the subject —he came to the conclusion that a great deal of what he had said before was incorrect? When my right hon. Friend sends me a copy of the letter which has been sent to the Royal College of Nursing, will be also publish in HANSARD the correspondence which took place between himself and the Royal College so that we can see whether or not the Royal College is satisfied?

Mr. Powell: I am not sure whether it would be appropriate to publish the whole of the correspondence in HANSARD—

Dame Irene Ward: I will ask the College.

Mr. Powell: —but I am sure that the Royal College will itself publish anything it wishes to be known. I consider that my recent meeting with the College was useful and that my letter to it put the facts in their true light.

Nursing Cadets

Mrs. Castle: asked the Minister of Health whether he is now in a position to make a statement about his proposed changes in the conditions of employment of nursing cadets.

Mr. Powell: Not yet.

Mrs. Castle: But does not the recent report of the Confederation of Health Service Employees about the very serious shortage of trained nurses show the urgent need for establishing good conditions of employment for these pre-nursing students as quickly as possible? Could I, once again, ask the right hon. Gentleman when he hopes to make his statement to the House?

Mr. Powell: I must ask the hon. Lady to be patient a little longer.

Mrs. Castle: asked the Minister of Health how many hospital management committees are making deductions from the pay of nursing cadets for attendance at educational courses on more than one day per week; and how many with nursing cadets schemes are making no such deductions.

Mr. Powell: I regret the information is not available.

Mrs. Castle: Does this not show that, pending the Minister's production of his clear statement of policy about the deductions from the pay of pre-nursing students who attend educational courses for more than one day a week, there is a disparity in the treatment of these hospital cadets by different hospital committees, a disparity which my Question was intended to elicit and which the Minister is able to evade by saying that the information is not available.

Mr. Powell: As this is an interim situation, I thought that it was not reasonable to secure reports on this point from all hospital authorities.

New Hospital, Boston

Sir H. Butcher: asked the Minister of Health what progress is being made with the arrangements to build a new hospital in Boston.

Mr. Powell: A revised plan has now been agreed and the sketch plans are being prepared.

Repairs and Maintenance

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health by what proportion the expenditure of regional hospital boards on maintenance of buildings, plant and grounds and domestic repairs, renewals and replacements fell short of the total originally allocated for those purposes in 1962–63; and by what proportion the comparable allocations for 1963–64 have been increased in real terms to enable deferred maintenance of this nature to be carried out.

Mr. Powell: Separate allocations are not made for individual items of revenue expenditure.

Mr. Robinson: Instead of "allocations", perhaps I should have used the expression "estimated expenditure within the total allocation." Is the Minister

aware that his own Estimates for 1963–64 make it perfectly clear that hospitals have deferred maintenance to the extent of about one-sixth in the past year in order to find the money to pay nursing salaries? Is he further aware that this is the most foolish kind of economy to force on hospital authorities, because the work will have to be done sooner or later and will cost more when it is done?

Mr. Powell: All hospital authorities have the responsibility of deciding, within the money available to them—which is increasing in real terms—on what points of development they will spend it. Where they have decided to defer maintenance in order further to increase staff I have no doubt that their judgment is right. When the figures of expenditure become available from the Board's accounts later in the year, I will certainly give the hon. Gentleman the figures of expenditure.

Mr. Denis Howell: But is not the Minister aware that the annual increase of 2½ per cent. allowed to hospital management committees is not an increase in real terms, as he said, and is creating considerable difficulties? For example, it is creating difficulties at Solihull, in Birmingham, where some wards have not been decorated for up to fifteen years. Will he look at the system of financing this sort of expenditure, because it is obviously inadequate to the needs?

Mr. Powell: The hon. Member is mistaken. This is an increase in real terms. At constant prices and salaries, it puts additional spending power into the hands of hospital authorities in addition to any that accrues from economies or increased efficiency.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Day Release Classes

Mr. Boyden: asked the Minister of Health if he will take steps to ensure that all juveniles aged 15–18 years employed in the National Health Service are given day release facilities as good as the best practice in the Civil Departments of State.

Mr. Braine: They already are.

Mr. Boyden: Does that mean that the complements in the executive councils


and the National Health Service allow 80 per cent. of juveniles under 18 to attend classes for one day a week?

Mr. Braine: It means that the existing arrangements are in line with the normal practice in the Civil Service and elsewhere. Some young technicians and apprentices are given one day's release a week for technical training. Other young people are given one day a week for general education.

Dispensing (Doctors)

Mr. Kirk: asked the Minister of Health what consideration he has given to the recommendation made to him by the General Medical Services Committee of the British Medical Association that a dispensing doctor should retain the right to continue dispensing for his patients if and when a chemist starts a business in that doctor's practice area.

Mr. Powell: I have concluded that this is contrary to the intention of the Act.

Mr. Kirk: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that quite a number of doctors, particularly in rural areas, are suffering a fairly hefty drop in income as a result of this? Even if it is contrary to the Act, can he not find some way of easing the pain a little?

Mr. Powell: I see the difficulty where the general practitioner has been meeting the dispensing needs of an area and when they are met in future, as is the normal case, by the pharmaceutical service. There is a period of notice, but I do not think in principle there can be any alteration in the present arrangements.

Sir H. Linstead: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that there is much to be said for accepting the basic principle of the Service, which is that the practice of medicine should be in the hands of medical practitioners and the practice of pharmacy in the hands of pharmacists?

Mr. Powell: I agree, and that is what I referred to as the intention of the Act.

Drugs

Sir T. Moore: asked the Minister of Health whether he has yet reached a decision regarding the suggestion made

by the hon. Member for Ayr of prohibiting manufacturers from putting new drugs on the market without prior submission to his advisory committee for authority to do so.

Mr. Powell: No, Sir. I await further advice from my Standing Medical Advisory Committee.

Sir T. Moore: I know that, but would my right hon. Friend at least consider preventing the continued production or importation of any drug which is known to have been taken by a pregnant mother whose child as a result has been born deformed?

Mr. Powell: If my hon. Friend has reason to suppose that such a drug is still being imported or marketed, I should be glad to have the information, but I am sure that on such a matter I ought to act upon the advice of the Committee.

Mr. Manuel: In view of the vast number of complaints he is now getting about new drugs coming on to the market without proper research having been done before sale, does not the Minister consider that he should think again about the whole question? We are now getting many complaints from constituents about side-effects of new drugs. This question is now so important that the Minister ought to take a real interest in it and ban the sale of new drugs until there has been proper research into their side-effects.

Mr. Powell: I am indeed taking a real interest in this. The hon. Member may recall that my Sub-committee advised the appointment of an expert body to review the evidence on the toxicity of new drugs, and I am awaiting further advice from that Committee.

Putney Migraine Clinic

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the Charing Cross Hospital use the Putney Migraine Clinic for the treatment of patients who cannot be offered treatment at Charing Cross; and if he will consider making wider use of the migraine clinic in the National Health Service.

Mr. Powell: No, Sir. Doctors in the National Health Service can offer any form of treatment they consider appropriate including that advocated by this clinic.

Dame Irene Ward: Why is the Minister always so persistently against the Putney Migraine Clinic? In view of the production of all these new pills for migraine under the National Health Service, would it not be a good idea to consult the clinic to see what part it can play? This clinic has done a good deal of work on investigating a cure for migraine. Is it not nonsense the way in which my right hon. Friend has persistently ignored the work of the Putney Migraine Clinic?

Mr. Powell: I am neither for nor against the Putney Migraine Clinic. All I am saying is that doctors under the National Health Service can give any form of treatment for migraine they consider appropriate, including that which the clinic advocates, of which I have every reason to think they are well aware.

Mr. Rankin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is an old sore and that, whatever doctors within the National Health Service may be able to do for the treatment of migraine, they are not doing it as a body because insufficient is known about the cause of migraine? Will not the Minister encourage further research to be done by the Medical Research Council into the cause and treatment of migraine?

Mr. Powell: I do not answer for the Medical Research Council, but I have no doubt that doctors in the National Health Service are aware of the importance of the treatment of this disease and of their own responsibility to act in the best interests of their patients.

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Is the Minister aware that migraine if often caused by dislocations of which both the medical men and the patients themselves are unaware, and that the right treatment is often manipulation?

Mr. Powell: I am afraid that I cannot enter into a clinical judgment.

Disabled Ex-Service Men (Motor Cars)

Mr. Hilton: asked the Minister of Health if he will now make available the new Mini car to ex-Service persons who have become disabled other than as a result of war-time service since discharge from Her Majesty's Forces.

Mr. Braine: No, Sir.

Mr. Hilton: Why does the Ministry continue to differentiate between the war disabled and those disabled by other means? Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that there are people who, having served for six years in the Forces, have, after demobilisation, become disabled and are having to get to work under great difficulties? Will not the hon. Gentleman urge his right hon. Friend to have another look at this matter, for do not such cases deserve sympathetic treatment?

Mr. Braine: The hon. Member will agree that there should not be a distinction made between National Health Service patients who have served in the Forces and other National Health Service patients for whom no such distinction is made. Patients who are sufficiently disabled are eligible for the provision of power transport and receive tricycles, but it is in accord with the tradition of the social services in this country that a preference is made in respect of the war disabled.

Mr. Hilton: Nevertheless, is it not a fact that a differentiation is now made? Will he not close this gap and make Mini cars available to a wide range of disabled persons?

Mr. Braine: There is a differentiation, but it is in the respect which I have explained. I think that on a moment's reflection the hon. Member will see that if, in fact, there was to be any kind of extension it is not a car as such that should be extended. One might well consider extending the eligibility of those who need this kind of transport; but that is another matter. This is a very serious matter and I do not think it can be settled on the basis the hon. Member suggests.

Women (Childbirth)

Mrs. Hart: asked the Minister of Health how many prosecutions have been instituted against employers allowing a woman or girl to be employed within four weeks of giving birth to a child, under the Factory and Works Act, 1901, and the Public Health Act, 1936.

Mr. Braine: I regret this information is not available.

Mrs. Hart: If the Government cannot discover this information, how do


they know that there is a need to consolidate this legislation in terms of the Private Member's Bill which the Government support? Will the Parliamentary Secretary urge his right hon. Friend to look again at the question of providing this information before any further steps are taken in regard to this Private Member's Bill?

Mr. Braine: The information is not kept centrally. The only way to get it would to ask the local authorities which are the enforcing authorities to search their records as far back as 1901. I think that it would be rash to assume, whether or not there have been a large number of prosecutions, that women employed in factories have not secured adequate protection as a result of the legislation passed all those years ago. The hon. Lady should reflect that in asking that power should not be taken to protect women in offices and shops in the same way as women have been protected in factories, she is in effect asking us to repeal the law protecting women in factories.

Lord Balniel: Would my hon. Friend not agree that the number of prosecutions under an Act is no indication of the social worth of the piece of legislation? Would he not agree that these Acts, which take no account of a doctor's recommendation, could be improved?

Mr. Braine: Yes, indeed, and I hope that the Bill we have before the House will receive sympathetic support on that count. But I think that there has been a great deal of misunderstanding on this point. The Minister's regulations likely to be made under that Bill, if it is enacted, will take into account modern conditions and the necessity of providing for special circumstances in varying employments in the interests of all women workers.

Mrs. Hart: Will the Parliamentary Secretary take note of two points; firstly, if the legislation already existing is dead in the sense that no one takes any notice of it and there are no prosecutions under it, then the new Bill cannot be said to be a consolidating Measure and it is, therefore, introducing a new principle which should be fully argued and debated in the House. Secondly, would he not agree that the Minister, in a long reply, introduced the principle of the

Bill? Would the Parliamentary Secretary not agree that in the view of many hon. Members it should be a matter for trade union negotiation to establish the same kind of excellent conditions for women who are employed both during and after the period of childbirth?

Mr. Speaker: We shall not make the progress demanded of me if we have supplementary questions of that length.

Doctors (Pay)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health what is the present gross annual pay of the average general practitioner in the National Health Service.

Mr. Braine: The latest available figure is about £3.750 for 1960–61.

Mr. Pavitt: Has not the Parliamentary Secretary given the gross and not the net? Is not the net nearer £2,500? Is the Minister aware that the coming discussions with the Prime Minister on the question of the Review Body's recommendations should bear in mind that those concerned are more interested in time and facilities than, perhaps, in questions of pay? Will he also bear in mind that there are very few people who are on the average and that there is need to bring down the number on the lists?

Mr. Braine: if the hon. Gentleman will look again at his Question he will see that it asks for the present gross annual pay. Therefore I did not give him any net figure. If he wants that he must put down a Question in some other form. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said last Thursday that the advice of the Review Body will be published when he makes his promised statement shortly, and I do think that we can wait until then.

Mr. K. Robinson: When discussions take place with the profession following the announcement of Government policy on this matter, will the Minister look into the question of the method of allocating practice expenses? Is he not aware that the present method acts as a disincentive to those general practitioners who want to give proper facilities and a good standard of service to their patients?

Mr. Braine: I am afraid that I have nothing further to say. I think that it


would be most unwise to say anything until my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made his statement.

Doctors (Post-graduate Education)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Minister of Health what has been the total sum paid to doctors in respect of post-graduate education from the sum reserved; how many doctors received grants; and what is the present balance in hand for this specified purpose.

Mr. Braine: This scheme is not yet in operation.

Mr. Pavitt: Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us when the scheme will be in operation? As this arose from the Report of the Royal Commission on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration published some eighteen months ago, when will the scheme operate, and what is he doing to facilitate it?

Mr. Braine: As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, the scheme was to start from a date to be agreed. My Department and representatives of the profession are discussing the details now, and no date has yet been settled. It is necessary, of course, to ensure that adequate courses are available.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Banks (Union Representation)

Mr. Prentice: asked the Minister of Labour what policy was adopted by Her Majesty's Government's representative at the International Labour Organisation in the recent discussions on the attitude of British banks towards trade unionism among their employees; what steps he is taking to comply with the International Labour Organisation request that be should set up an inquiry; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. William White-law): At its session on 8th March, the Governing Body of the International Labour Office accepted a recommendation from its Freedom of Association Committee that the United Kingdom Government be invited to set up an inquiry. There was no discussion, but our representative said that the Govern-

ment would give careful consideration to the request. The request has not yet been received.

Mr. Prentice: Is the Minister aware that we on this side have for many years been urging the Minister and his predecessors to use their influence with the banks to afford normal facilities to the National Union of Bank Employees? Does he not think it a somewhat embarrassing situation when a British trade union has to take its problems to the I.L.O. to try to get the answer it cannot get in this country? Will the hon. Gentleman make it absolutely clear that when this request is received, in the formal sense, the Minister will, in fact, set up an inquiry quickly? When does he expect to be able to announce to the House the terms of reference, the number of members, and details like that?

Mr. Whitelaw: The possibility of an inquiry is being actively considered. Until that decision has been taken, I cannot say more in answer to the hon. Gentleman's other requests. I could not agree that it is in any way embarrassing that this request should have come from the International Labour Organisation. As the hon. Gentleman knows, this is a very complicated matter and the I.L.O. considered that some sort of inquiry was necessary. The I.L.O. could have set up an inquiry itself but, instead, has given us the opportunity of doing so.

North Staffordshire

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Labour what percentage of the working population in north Staffordshire is unemployed at the latest date for which figures are available; and what action is being taken by his Department to prevent the further spread of redundancy.

Mr. Whitelaw: It was 4·2 per cent. at 11th February, 1963. The March figure will be available later this week, and I will send it to the hon. Member. There are also redundancies pending, and our local officers are in touch with the firms with a view to helping the workers affected to find other employment.

Mr. Swingler: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that this is a very serious situation, with getting on for 10,000 workers in north Staffordshire unemployed? And we still have not felt


the effect of the prospective closure of British Aluminium. What are his officers doing about bringing new industry to north Staffordshire, or trying to persuade people like British Aluminium to stay their hand instead of increasing unemployment?

Mr. Whitelaw: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the question of bringing new industry to north Staffordshire is one for my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. Our officers are doing everything they can to find other employment for these people.

Mr. Harold Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in addition to whatever the figure may be on paper, there much hidden unemployment? Would he, therefore, realise that the north Staffordshire position is serious and that encouragement is needed in the form of new industries and other enterprises?

Mr. Whitelaw: I note what the hon. Gentleman says and I hope that we may see some improvement when the March figures come out this week.

CONGO (PRESIDENT TSHOMBE)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Lord Privy Seal with reference to the Thant plan for Congo reconciliation, what arrangements have been made to protect the person of President Tshombe; and to what extent the United Nations have made good the undertaking that he should retain a Katangan gendarmerie escort.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Peter Smithers): The United Nations agreed on 17th January that a personal guard of company strength would be authorised at Mr. Tshombe's residence. A few members of that guard would be authorised to escort him in his movements.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Can my hon. Friend say whether this undertaking by the United Nations has been fulfilled?

Mr. Smithers: As far as I know, it is still in operation.

B.B.C. BROADCASTS (JAMMING)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Lord Privy Seal if he is aware that the Soviet Government have now officially stated through the Soviet head of cultural relations, M. Sergei Romanowski, that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is jamming the British Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts; what recent representations and efforts have been made to end this jamming; what other countries also jam British Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Smithers: Yes, Sir. During the negotiations in January this year for the renewal of the Anglo-Soviet Cultural Agreement, Her Majesty's Government took up once more the Soviet jamming of British Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts. There was no change in the Soviet position which was that they jam only those broadcasts which they consider to be hostile and to constitute interference in their internal affairs. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria and China also jam British Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts. Broadcasts in Polish and Albanian are subject to interference from jammers outside the territories of those countries. Broadcasts in German are jammed in East Germany.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Do we operate any counter-jamming?

Mr. Smithers: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Scandinavian Businessmen (Visit)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what advantage he took of the recent visits by businessmen from Scandinavian countries to establish among other matters which aspects of fisheries are common to Britain and those countries, for the purpose of correlating and expanding those common interests and British fishing.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Scott-Hopkins): I do not know to what visitors the hon. and


learned Member refers, but in any event no such group has made any approach to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Parliamentary Secretary not aware that a number of Scandinavian people interested in the fishing industry attended at Lancaster House recently to discuss business affairs with his Ministry; that this provided a very special occasion and a very special opportunity for British businessmen and the Ministry to discuss with those Scandinavian representatives of business interests means of fostering international trade, not only between Britain and those countries in general, but between Scotland and all the other countries round the North Sea?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I am not aware of any approach to my right hon. Friend by any Scandinavian people concerning fishing interests.

Fertilisers

Mr. Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will include prepared dried organic fertilisers made from sewage amongst the fertilisers which qualify for subsidy.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: No, Sir. It is impracticable to pay subsidy on organic fertilisers in view of their variable plant food content and the consequent difficulty in establishing the appropriate rate of subsidy.

Mr. Irving: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his predecessor said about three years ago that research was going on into this problem? Does the hon. Gentleman not anticipate any conclusion to the research, and is he aware that the sale of this fertiliser provides a useful reduction to the rate requirement and that much more could be sold if it were not for competition from other types of subsidised fertiliser?

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I appreciate the hon. Member's concern that there should be an increase in the sale of this organic substance. Indeed, I would welcome any increase that could be achieved, but, as my right hon. Friend pointed out to the hon. Member some time ago, the difficulties make it almost impracticable to give any form of subsidy when one does not know the exact content of the organic material.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Rateable Values

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he will announce the share of the new rateable values to be borne by industry, commerce and householders, respectively; and what will be the percentage increase or decrease in each class compared to the current valuations.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): As the Answer is long and contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Sir G. Nabarro: Having regard to all the hullabaloo there is about local rates, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he can assure the House, within all bounds of human ingenuity, that the rate burden is now equitably spread as between industrial hereditaments, commercial hereditaments, including shops, and private dwellings, while leaving farmland derated? Has my right hon. Friend done all he possibly can to see that the burden is equitably spread over all these classes of ratepayer?

Sir K. Joseph: I think that I can honourably say, in answer to my hon. Friend, that looking at the distribution of the rate burden it is now on a common basis of current value and that therefore it does justice, subject always to the right of appeal, between industrial, commercial and domestic ratepayers. This tends, of course, to be confused with the quite different question of the effects, in different parts of the country, of the increase of rate-call to pay the ratepayer's share, as opposed to the massive taxpayer's share, of education and other urgently needed services. It is true, of course, that in some parts of the country where there is not large industry the share of the domestic ratepayer has tended for revaluation reasons, apart from rate-call reasons, to rise. But hon. Members need to be reminded that there are a number of parts of the country where industry is thick on the ground and where domestic ratepayers will be paying substantially less as their share than in the past.

Mr. Lipton: However much the right hon. Gentleman may seek to gloss over the figures, may I ask whether he does not realise that there is massive and mounting opinion growing up against the present rating system and its injustices? What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do about that?

Sir K. Joseph: The present rating system is meeting the demands of the whole country for rising local authority services to which the taxpayer is contributing an increasing share. It is therefore important to recognise that if the House wishes these services to increase it must expect that taxpayers and ratepayers between them must pay. as they are now doing.

Sir Richard Pilkington: Is my right hon. Friend in a position to say whether the Government can help those areas which are particularly badly struck by the new arrangements?

Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend knows that I am seeing deputations from some of these areas whenever requested, but that the Government's decision not to use the derating power, which provided for an even steeper share in the rate burden than has occurred, has been made.

Mr. MacColl: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that nobody really knows what are the incidences of rates and that there has been no proper inquiry into the incidence of rates since before the war? Is he aware, therefore, that if the Government had carried out the recommendations which we on this side of the House made, and had been making for many years, for an inquiry into the rating system, these difficulties would not have arisen? When does the right hon. Gentleman hope to let us have the revised edition of the White Paper, which it was promised would be issued after the assessments had been published, showing the effect of the incidence of rating on different classes in different areas?

Sir K. Joseph: I hope to publish in a few weeks the figures for which the hon. Member asks. As for the first part of his supplementary question, all the figures I can gather together show that rates represent a smaller proportion of earnings than they did before the war, but this is no comfort to hon. Members

in areas where the primary problem is not one of earnings but one of fixed incomes. I think that there is a problem of the trends of local authority costs to be considered, and I know that the House has the future of this very much in mind.

Following is the Answer:
The first table below shows the proportion of total rateable value in England and Wales represented by each of the main classes of hereditament in the old and the new valuation lists and the percentage change between the two. The second table makes a similar comparison, but taking account of the contribution made by rate-deficiency grant at the rates payable for 1962–63 and 1963–64 respectively. In each case the old valuation lists have been taken as they stood on 1st December last and the new lists as deposited on 21st December.
Crown property has yet to be revalued, and in consequence both tables considerably understate the share of rateable value on which the Crown will be making payment in lieu of rates and somewhat overstate the proportions attributable to the other classes in the new lists.

TABLE 1


Type of property
Proportion of total rateable value
Percentage change between (2) and (3)



In old lists
In new lists


(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)


Domestic
47·00
48·35
+ 2·9


Shops
10·62
10·32
- 2·8


Other commercial
13·20
12·90
- 2·3


Industry
11·21
16·32
+45·6


Miscellaneous
13·72
10·52
-23·3


Crown
4·25
1·59
-62·6

TABLE II


Type of Property
Proportion of total rateable value plus rateable value equivalent of rate-deficiency grant
Percentage change between (2) and (3)



1962–63
1963–64



(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)


Domestic
41·10
41·48
+ 0·9


Shops
9·29
8·85
-4·7


Other commercial
11·54
11·06
-4·2


Industry
9·81
14·01
+42·8


Miscellaneous
12·00
9·02
-24·8


Crown
3·71
1·37
-63·1

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Tribunal of Inquiry (Report)

Sir H. Linstead: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will place a copy of the proceedings and evidence of the Vassall Tribunal of Inquiry in the Library of the House.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): I am arranging for copies of the transcripts of the evidence taken in the public sessions of the Tribunal to be placed in the Library. The evidence taken in camera is, of course, confidential and cannot be thus made available.

Oral Answers to Questions — BILL PRESENTED

DOG RACING (APPOINTED DAYS)

Bill to provide for the fixing of days when betting facilities may be provided on licensed tracks being dog racecourses in place of appointed days lost due to weather conditions or other circumstances, presented by Mr. Rees-Davies; supported by Miss Alice Bacon, Mr. Godfrey Lagden, Mr. Mellish, and Brigadier Terence Clarke; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday and to be printed [Bill 82.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. G. Campbell.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[11TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

AIR ESTIMATES, 1963–64, AND AIR SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1962–63; NAVY ESTIMATES, 1963–64, AND NAVY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1962–63; ARMY ESTIMATES, 1963–64, AND ARMY SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE, 1962–63; ROYAL ORDNANCE FACTORIES ESTIMATE, 1963–64; WAR OFFICE PURCHASING (REPAYMENT) SERVICES ESTIMATE, 1963–64.

AIR ESTIMATES

Vote 1. Pay, etc., of the Air Force

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £128,120.000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, &amp;c., of the Air Force, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.

3.29 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: It is today that we vote the money for these Services and not on the Air Estimates, which have been debated, as my right hon. Friend the Chief Opposition Whip pointed out on Friday. Therefore, it is today that we give authority for the expenditure of the money. I think that most hon. Members will agree that it is a very unsatisfactory procedure to try, in the short time available to us, to cover the whole range of expenditure of all three Services. At the same time, I think that it could also be said that a Committee of the whole House is not the best or the most effective way to try to exert any kind of authority over detailed Government expenditure. In the circumstances, therefore, all we can do is to try to pick out a number of main points.
The Vote which we have before us—the pay of the Royal Air Force—represents a quarter of the total expenditure of the force. On behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I should like to welcome the fact that Air Force pay will


be increased from 1st April next, this being the second half of the money which the force really should have had this time last year. Before I go into further detail, I should like to ask why this year we are given less information than hitherto. A comparison of the Air Estimates for 1963–64 with those of last year shows a great economy of paper. The current Estimates occupy 52 pages against the 225 pages of last year's Air Estimates.
While I think that it would be wrong to judge it purely on the number of pages, I think, looking through the document, that there is much less information in the current format than previously, and I wonder why this change has been made. The layout and the typographical content of this year's document is better than in previous years, but a number of informative notes have disappeared, and, since hon. Members find it very difficult to get any information at all of a detailed character, this is to be deplored. I hope that the Under-Secretary will explain why these changes have been made.
Under Vote 1, B—" Allowances, etc., of officers "—I notice that the overseas allowances of officers are going up by £200.000 and that the allowances of other ranks is going up by £1million. Does this represent a substantial increase in the rate of allowance, or is it expected that in the next year there will be a much larger number of Royal Air Force personnel overseas and in receipt of these allowances?
I wonder, also, whether the Under-Secretary will be able to enlighten us on the education allowances. In the past, I have often received representations from officers and airmen about the level of education allowances. I think that it is a long-standing grievance in the Service that although, as far as they can see, they should be on the same footing as comparable personnel in the Foreign Service and in the Colonial Office, so far as education allowances are concerned for children who are left or sent home to school, I understand that they receive substantially less.
Although there has been a welcome increase in the education allowances during the past year, there seems no case for putting people in the Services in a less favourable position than diplomats and colonial servants, who are often

stationed in exactly comparable circumstances. I hope that we can be told why this is, and what the Secretary of State or the Minister of Defence is doing about it.
I understand that a good deal of trouble also arises in connection with the ferrying of children to and fro in connection with the practice called in the Air Force "indulgence passages", whereby some parents are able to save a substantial sum of money by getting one of these free passages to the United Kingdom for their children. Could we be told how this is arranged?
I heard in Cyprus last autumn, to my surprise, that an attempt which had been made by some of the parents to charter an aircraft to send their children to school at somewhat reduced fares had been cancelled or forbidden by someone. I do not know whether that was an Air Ministry decision, or how it arose, but certainly I feel that what is done about education in this connection is very important for the future of the Services, because the main deterrent to many families, in considering a career in the Air Force or in one of the other Services, is the problem of their children's education.
Therefore, the maximum that can be done to alleviate the great difficulties involved, particularly when there is no suitable Service school in the vicinity, and often when there is such a school, the better. The fact that children have to change their schools every two or three years when their fathers' postings are changed is regarded as a bad and difficult circumstance from an educational point of view, and many parents make great sacrifices to avoid this problem.
I notice in this year's Estimates no figure for entertainment allowances, as there was in last year's Estimates. Could we be told whether entertainment allowances paid to officers should appear under this Vote and whether they are on the same basis as in previous years?
Also under this Vote—though it is not set out this year as it has been previously—is the language allowance. Looking back over the problems that have arisen in Germany with the forces —although, happily, I am glad to say, not in connection with personnel of the Royal Air Force—I think that there is a great deal to be said, from the point of


view of occupying the time of the personnel and also of avoiding possible friction through misunderstanding, for encouraging — not instructing — officers and men to acquire a knowledge of the language of the country in which they are serving.
I wonder whether the language awards are reasonably directed to this end, or whether there is a rather fancy scheme in which something equivalent to a university language degree is required so that an allowance of such a rather paltry sum is paid. I should like some information about the language awards and to know whether they are paid for the kind of purpose that I have indicated.
Finally, may I make a comment about the appropriations in aid? We need not only to concern ourselves with expenditure, but also to inquire if we see the appropriations in aid being reduced. This item, again, seems to be in a different form from that in previous years. The total amount seems to be almost exactly comparable, although the individual items are somewhat different. I notice that the receipts that we expect to get from lending personnel to other Governments is halved. Is this because we are becoming less popular in the world, or is there any real reason why receipts under this heading should be reduced?
Under "Other receipts" are included, I believe, receipts obtained by the Service when airmen purchase their discharge. I wonder whether this is the reason why this item, "Other receipts", at £145,000, is £40,000 less than last year. How many categories of personnel are precluded from buying their discharge because of an imbalance in recruitment? Does the Under-Secretary expect that the receipts under this heading resulting from discharge by purchase next year will be less, and, if so, is this because the number of people coming forward is fewer or because the Air Ministry is declining to give permission?
If we could get some information on the points that I have raised, we would be better able to assess whether this very large sum will be well spent.

3.40 p.m.

Mr. John Eden: I wish to take the opportunity to make a general comment on the layout of Vote 1 and of the Votes generally.

I wish to congratulate my hon. Friend on the presentation of the Estimates as a whole. I think it makes it much easier for us to understand what is going on when the comparison is set out very clearly as compared with what took place in the previous year.
I have, however, one point to make on that. The notes on page 9 of the Estimates refer to Appendix I. This is a small point, but it would be easier to follow, particularly on later votes, if that were printed in slightly bolder type, because the notes are extremely important and they refer to appendices which give very full amplification of some of the details of the Vote itself.
Turning to Appendix I, I wish to ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for Air why these marriage allowance rates do not apply to officers under 25 years of age. Why do they receive marriage allowances at the lower rate when they are under that age? I wonder what lies behind the thinking here. There must be some reason for fixing the allowance at 12s. whereas others are rated at a higher level. I wonder whether my hon. Friend can give an answer to that in due course.
Another small detail concerns the education allowance and how recently the figure has been revised. I do not know whether my hon. Friend can say anything about that and whether the allowance takes into account the realistic costs which the individual serving officer and airman would have to meet in the event of having to board his children at school while he was serving overseas.
I apologise to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) that I did not hear his opening remarks. He may have referred to a point made by my hon. Friend in his speech at an earlier stage of the proceedings. My hon. Friend said that there are reduced numbers of serving personnel, but, nevertheless, those reduced numbers are costing us a little more. Perhaps my hon. Friend can amplify the exact reason for that. Probably it is not only because of higher rates of pay; it may have something to do with the higher technological skill of the people employed.
Those are a few general points on which it would be interesting to hear further elaboration by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary.

3.42 p.m.

Mr. E. Shinwell: I wish to raise a question on the Supplementary Estimate, namely, a reference to the cost of cancellation of the Skybolt missile.

The Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Member, but the Supplementary Estimate will come later.

Mr. Shinwell: I beg pardon, Sir William. I was not aware of that. I do not want to transgress. Presumably the items concerned are wrapped up in the main document which we debated last week. Would it be in order to put a question to the Under-Secretary on the main Estimates?

The Chairman: That is so.

Mr. George Wigg: On a point of order. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) wishes to raise a question on Skybolt, he need not wait for the Supplementary Estimate. Surely he would be in order in raising it on Vote 7.

The Chairman: I would rather not deal with Vote 7 until we get there. We are at present on Vote 1 and we must restrict ourselves to that.

Mr. Shinwell: In that case, I shall defer further consideration of this very important matter.

Mr. John Rankin: On a point of order. May I point out that under Orders of the Day and Notices of Motion one could quite easily misread those items, because it says:
Air Estimates, 1963–64, and Air Supplementary Estimate, 1962–63;
then there is a semi-colon, which might seem to indicate that those two could be understood as being taken together.

The Chairman: It is often possible to misread, but I thought it better that we should not misread it.

Mr. Wigg: I shall not keep the Committee for more than a few moments. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden) congratulated his hon. Friend on the presentation of these Estimates and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) was critical. In the interests of justice, it should be pointed out that this has nothing to do with the Air Ministry. I believe that I am right in thinking that these

Estimates have been prepared in a form recommended by the Estimates Committee, a form which is common to all three Services. While I am sorry to deprive the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West of a ground on which to congratulate his hon. Friend when a grain of comfort is so rare, it is in the interests of accuracy that I point out that this change has nothing to do with the Air Ministry.

3.45 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Julian Ridsdaie): I wish, first, to thank the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) for deferring his question until we reach the Supplementary Estimates.
The new form of the Air Estimates has been referred to by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden), and also by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) in a slightly more controversial way. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park mentioned that the new form which this year's Estimates take and this "new look" which the Defence Department Estimates have for 1963–64 follows, as the hon. Member for Dudley said, on the revision of the Civil Estimates for 1962–63. That has met with widespread approval and is something on which the Government, if possible, should be congratulated.

Mr. Mulley: Perhaps I did not make the point quite clear. I was well aware that the form was changed, but I do not think that the Estimates Committee had as its objective the suppressing of information which formerly was given. Surely no one said that a number of notes should not be included.

Mr. Ridsdale: I was coming to that point.
The Estimates were considered by the Estimates Committee last year and the new Estimates have taken account of that Committee's views. The revision, as in the case of the Civil Estimates, is in accordance with the Plowden Committee's recommendations that the Estimates should be simplified with a view to expounding the facts of public expenditure as lucidly as possible. There has been a reduction in the detailed information which is provided, particularly under


the civilian pay Votes, where we used to show in elaborate detail the numbers and costs of all separate grades employed, but we have only eliminated information which we and the Treasury considered to be of no real value to Parliament, or indeed, to the general public.
Most of the information previously given under Vote 1 —rates of pay and allowances and numbers of Service personnel—is now given in Appendices I and II. All the information previously given on the reserves is in Appendix III, whilst Appendix IV gives information about civilians in the same way as the Civil Estimates and in more reasonable form than the 1962–63 Estimates. We have repeated the appendices on educational and meteorological services as in the past.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked me about local overseas allowance and about the increase of £1,127,000 in the 1963 Estimate for local overseas allowance. There are three main reasons for this increase. The first is that the size of the Royal Air Force overseas will be rather bigger than this year. Secondly, we expect a bigger proportion of the overseas personnel to be married. This continues a trend which began some years ago. Thirdly, we expect higher rates of allowances in sonic of the overseas areas because of the rise in cost of living. It is this larger number of married men which accounts for most of the extra cost. Naturally, they need higher allowances than the single men if they are not to suffer a fall in their standard of living when they take their families overseas.
In modern conditions, this practice is difficult to avoid. It is part of the price which we have to pay for an all-Regular force. If we are to post married men overseas for fairly lengthy periods—for two years or more—and they wish to have their families with them, we must make satisfactory arrangements for them, within the limits of the family accommodation which can be provided overseas.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park raised the important question of education allowances. He asked how the existing R.A.F. allowances compare with those of the Foreign and Colonial Services and whether they are adequate for the R.A.F.

These allowances are intended to help parents with their children's education and not to subsidise the cost completely. In the words of the Grigg Committee, we take it as a guiding principle that no child should get a worse education because his father is in the Services.
This means helping those parents who choose a boarding school education and those parents who choose a day school. Many parents like to keep their children with them when they move from one station to another. Most R.A.F. parents do this. Over 80 per cent. of R.A.F. children of school age are at day school. Our help consists not only of education allowances but of the provision of local Service schools overseas, something which a Service such as the Foreign Service does not enjoy.
But we recognise that the cost of educating the children has risen, and as from the Michaelmas term, 1962—this may answer my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden}—the increased rates were introduced. These are £185 for the first child at boarding school, £225 for the second child and £260 for the third and other children. It is true that Foreign Office rates are higher, but the conditions of service are different in the Foreign Office and there are difficulties in making a comparison of education allowances without looking at the whole field of pay and other conditions in the Foreign Service.
What is essential for the R.A.F. and other Services is to see that the help which we give to Service parents with children having boarding education keeps pace with rising fees, and I think that we can claim fairly justly that we have been able to do this. We expect that during the coming year the number of officers' and airmen's children qualifying for education allowances will rise to about 5,500 for officers and 1,400 for airmen. This represents an increase of broadly 10 per cent, in officers' and 40 per cent. in airmen's children over the previous year, which, I think, is a satisfactory development.
A question which is often asked is, "Do airmen get the same allowances as officers?" I am glad to be able to say that airmen receive the same rate as officers, and it is clear from the increasing number of airmen's cases that they


are finding the allowances a real help. No one would dispute that Service life makes things difficult for parents. They are as keen as civilian parents to see that their children get a good start. But we must not dictate their choice of school. If they can get a child to a boarding school—including local education authority boarding schools—then these education allowances are a big help to the Service parents.
As I have said, more R.A.F. parents are taking advantage of them. In fact, in the majority of cases where the child attends a local education authority boarding school, the education allowance covers the bill completely. This is also true where the parent receives a grant from the local education authority for a child at a private school. If the parents choose a day school in this country and leave the children with a relative or guardian, they can also get an allowance to help them, and this has been increased recently from £50 to £55. If they decide to keep the children with them, moving when they move, we do our best to provide schools overseas of as good a standard as the general run of schools in this country.
The advice of the R.A.F, education officers is always available to the parents. I do not claim that no R.A.F. parents will run into difficulties, but on the whole the present system provides parents with a real choice and is working very well. Generally, local education authorities are sympathetic towards the allocation of boarding school places to Service children, especially when the parents are posted overseas.

Mr. Mulley: What steps do the Air Ministry take centrally to provide an information service to officers and other ranks about the education possibilities of local education authorities? Often, by virtue of being in the Service and moving around a lot, a man does not have much local information. Is there someone to whom he can write in the Air Ministry who will advise him about local education authority schools, as distinct from private schools?

Mr. Ridsdale: He has his own education officer in the unit who is in touch with the Air Ministry on these points and who helps the men on them. Very close personal contact is kept with the

men to make sure that they know the facilities which are available.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked me about entertainment allowances. We expect to spend £67,000 on these allowances next year. Allowances are paid to officers in commands varying from squadron leaders in charge, for example, of a small radar station to group captains commanding major flying stations, and also to commanders-in-chief. In particular, the allowances help them to be reasonably hospitable to distinguished visitors at various levels who visit them in their official capacity as representatives of the Service.

Mr. John Hall: What is the normal entertainment allowance for an officer with such a command?

Mr. Ridsdale: I have not the detailed figures available, but I will see that my hon. Friend gets them. I have no doubt that some of the proposed expenditure will nourish and comfort hon. Members when they pay their much-appreciated visits to R.A.F. stations and headquarters overseas.

Mr. Mulley: Does not official entertainment come under Vote 9—as it was included in last year's Estimates but excluded this year—and not under Vote 1?

Mr. Wigg: How is this hospitality, which apparently includes free meals and drinks, extended to Members? Is it done by selection, or how is it done? From hints which we receive it appears that a considerable number of hon. Members opposite are taken away and given secret information, and they come back and drop a hint about it. But those of us who want to find out the facts are denied even a cup of "char" or even an opportunity of getting anywhere near the place?

Mr. Ridsdale: I am sure that the hon. Member for Dudley knows quite well that the R.A.F. hospitality is open equally to both sides of the House.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park also mentioned language awards. They are divided into three groups, depending on the difficulty of the language in which a qualification is obtained. The most difficult group covers such as Arabic, Japanese and Russian. The easiest group covers French, German and most of the other European languages. The awards


are also categorised according to the difficulty of qualification. The lowest award is that of the colloquial standard and the highest award is that of the first-class interpreter.
Thus, the awards range from £25 for the colloquial standard in French and German to £500 for a first-class interpreter in, for example, Arabic. We expect to spend over £32,000 on language awards next year. As one who has received a language award—for Japanese—I would like to say that I appreciate the value of the awards.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West raised the question of the minimum age for full entitlement to marriage allowances. Airmen below the age of 21 and officers below the age of 25 draw only restricted rates of married allowances and are not entitled to married accommodation, travelling expenses for their families, removal expenses or disturbance allowance. These restrictions are common to all three Services and are imposed because it is in the general interest of all three and of the individual to encourage men not to marry before they have had time to learn their jobs, absorb the traditions of the Service and grow accustomed to the Service way of life—all of which they can best do by living in a station and playing their full part in the corporate life of the unit.

Mr. Eden: As this practice has been in operation for some time, who is the arbiter of the proper age for marriage allowances?

Mr. Ridsdale: It has been reviewed since I was in the Services. Before the war, I believe that one could not get married as an officer before the age of 30 or as an other rank before the age of 25. The arbiters are the Air Council, the Board of Admiralty and the Army Council. I believe that this long-standing inter-Service policy is the right one. Before the war, I understand, the average age of marriage for all ranks was 26.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West also raised the question of the increased amount provided for pay in Vote I. I was asked why we have found it necessary to make greater provision for pay under this Vote this year than last year. As I pointed out in our debate last week, the strength of the

Royal Air Force in 1963–64 will be significantly lower than in 1962–63, but the savings from the lower strength have been more than offset by the increase in the average rates of pay. The main cause of this higher than average rate is the new pay scale which is to come into effect on 1st April. In addition, we have a larger proportion of airmen serving on longer engagements, which naturally attract higher rates of pay.
Finally, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked about receipts from the purchase of discharges. We expect these to be about £73,000 next year, which is about the same figure as for 1962–63 and 1961–62. About 800 airmen and airwomen have taken their discharge by purchase so far this financial year.

Mr. Farey-Jones: I apologise to my hon. Friend for going back some way in his speech and returning to the subject of educational facilities. What facilities are there in the Middle and the Far East for school holidays? Is there any arrangement with Transport Command whereby children may spend long holidays with their parents?

Mr. Ridsdale: There are indulgence passages which can be gained, but I see the import of my hon. Friend's remarks and I will certainly look into this matter further to see whether anything more can be done.

4.7 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: I had not intended to intervene, but I have been provoked into doing so by the remarks about the entertainment allowance and the suggestion that this allowance has been used primarily for the entertainment of hon. Members. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and I once wanted to attend Conference "Prospect" which was attended by all the air chief marshals on the Air Council, all those who had already left it to become directors of air companies, and those who were still serving but who were soon to become directors. The steps taken to exclude us from that conference bordered on the ludicrous.
I resent the suggestion that this money is expended in a fair and equitable way as between one side and another. I recall that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) told


me that he would like to see the V-bomber force, and he asked me if would go with him. I agreed to do so. We made application, but the then Secretary of State for Air saw to it that we were never allowed to go. Yet, almost at the same time, another hon. Member went to see the force and then wrote two highly sensational and almost completely inaccurate articles for the Sunday Pictorial, for which he got a high fee.

Mr. John Hall: He was on the hon. Gentleman's side of the Committee.

Mr. Wigg: I am not making a party point about this. I am merely giving the facts. I am not drawing deductions.

Mr. Hall: I understood the hon. Gentleman to be saying that distinctions were made between the two sides of the Committee, and that it was we on this side who enjoyed the entertainment allowance. But the hon. Gentleman has now quoted an instance in which an hon. Member on his own side got precedence.

Mr. Wigg: If the hon. Gentleman wants me to say that it was an hon. Member on this side of the Committee, I will do so. If he wishes to, he can draw his own deductions. If the cap fits, then let him wear it. But I object to an hon. Member coming to this Committee and urging us to have sealed lips on questions about the TSR2 after he has received secret information. Another hon. Member opposite has played the same game.

Mr. Eden: The hon. Gentleman refers to the TSR2, but I cannot imagine how my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, or the Secretary of State himself, have any responsibility for that under this Vote.

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) was suggesting that the entertainment allowance, or considerable parts of it, is used for hon. Members.

Mr. Eden: That has nothing to do with the Royal Air Force.

Mr. Wigg: The hon. Gentleman suggested that the allowance was used substantially for dishing out entertainment to hon. Members. All I say is, "Good luck to those who have had it". I am not envious of them. All I want

is information. I do not mind people writing highly imaginative articles about the V-bombers and becoming public relations officers. I am interested in information.
Will the Under-Secretary of State be good enough to publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of those hon. Members who, during this financial year, have visited R.A.F. stations at public expense and have been entertained out of this entertainment allowance? Let us know what is going on on both sides. Let us know about the expense of visits, such as the one paid to the TSR2 by a few hon. Members who were given secret information that they had no right to have and who came here afterwards, with fingers on their lips, and suggested that they had some advantage. I do not believe, in any case, that they had such an advantage.

Mr. Hall: Which hon. Member has indicated that he had secret information about the TSR2?

Mr. Wigg: The Under-Secretary of State's Parliamentary Private Secretary said the other night that it would not be right to give the range of the TSR2. If he will not give it, I will do so a little later, on Vote 7.

The Chairman: Order. The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is well within order in talking about the entertainment allowance, but the TSR2 does not come under this Vote.

Mr. Wigg: I am sorry, Sir William. I have been led astray again.
I want to deal with the exclusiveness involved in the allowance. I have not the slightest objection to every hon. Member, on both sides, being given an opportunity to enjoy this; and if I do not go along, that is my affair. There is no envy in my heart. But if the hon. Member for Wycombe uses the excuse that hon. Members are not having a bad time off this Vote, then I ask the Under-Secretary of State to publish the names of those hon. Members who have taken advantage of it. Perhaps he will be good enough to publish in the OFFICIAL. REPORT the names of those hon. Members who, at public expense, have had the privileged advantage of visiting the R.A.F. during the last financial year.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: If there is any difficulty about hon. Members going to see the Service installations, it is well known, I think, that they have only themselves to thank. Opportunities to visit Service stations and other places concerning the Services are open to hon. Members on both sides of the House, as every hon. Gentleman knows, or should know.

Mr. Wigg: Not to me.

Mr. Kershaw: Perhaps there are hon Members who do not take the trouble to read their party Whip and do not ask to go on these trips to various installations. If they wish to have a list of the names published so that members of the public see that those who interest themselves in military affairs nevertheless do not trouble to visit the units, the public will be able to draw the conclusion that those hon. Members have no interest in the Services and merely like to hear themselves talk in the Chamber.

4.11 p.m.

Mr E. Shinwell: We have just had a piece of gross impertinence from the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw). That was all it was, and the hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of himself. He does not do himself justice by talking in that stupid fashion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has raised a point of substance. We have been told over and over again that we should be better informed about Service matters. I think that that view meets with the general agreement of hon. Members. How are we to be informed? We can be informed only by visiting depots, whether it be Royal Air Force, Admiralty or Army depots, and places where weapons are concentrated, and by asking questions. I do not suggest that we always get satisfactory answers, and I realise that we cannot impinge on security. Those of us who have had some dealings with the Service Departments would not dare to impinge on security. I think that that is well known.
This is not only a question of the entertainment allowance. I beg the Under-Secretary to understand that no one grudges group commanders, wing commanders and others the very small amount provided for them to ensure that those who visit their establishments are

furnished with reasonable entertainment. No one suggests that there is any extravagance in such matters. This is a question of selection. The hon. Member for Stroud is quite wrong. I do not suggest that my hon. Friend's proposal that a list should be provided should be pressed.

Mr. Eden: On a point of order. I apologise for interrupting the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), but surely this is a matter for dispute on the benches opposite and is nothing to do with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary? It is common knowledge that the hon. Members for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) and Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) and others have frequently visited Service establishments, and I am sure the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park would agree with that. The matter of selection for these visits is for the Opposition to decide and does not concern my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary.

The Chairman: It is in order to argue to what use the money under the Vote should be put. The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) is in order.

Mr. Shinwell: Anyone with any experience of the procedure of the House of Commons will know that that was not a point of order. It was merely an interruption, and I accept it in that sense.
This is not a dispute which is confined to hon. Members on this side. It affects all hon. Members. It is true that some do not avail themselves of the opportunity to visit these establishments, but that is for substantial reasons.
When we were debating the Army Estimates, the other night, I suggested to the Secretary of State for War that when it came to furnishing hon. Members with information on the matters which we are now discussing—weapons, training, and what goes on at the depots, and so on—hon. Members should be occasionally invited to visit those places instead of the matter being left exclusively to the discretion of the Whips. That is all that I ask. I was grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for assenting to my point of view.
I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Air will convey to his right hon. Friend the fact that that is the desire of hon. Members so far as the Air Force is concerned. I am not seeking to interfere with the discretion of the Whips.


However, it may be desirable on occasions that this matter should not be left exclusively to the discretion of the Whips, but that the Secretary of State for Air, or the Secretary of State for War, or the First Lord of the Admiralty, should invite hon. Members, and even right hon. Members, to gain information by visiting these establishments. That is all we ask.
Some of us are not prepared to be bound down firmly to leaving this matter to the discretion of the Whips, as a result of which we are debarred from obtaining information which should be available to all hon. Members.

4.16 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: I should have not intervened again but for the highly offensive remarks of the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw). It is not the first time that he has indulged in that sort of thing. To suggest that I merely come to the House to talk and take no trouble to ascertain the facts, or to go on trips, is a gross insult. I accept it as such and will treat the hon. Gentleman accordingly in future. If he does not know how to behave like a gentleman, that is good enough.

Mr. Kershaw: The hon. Gentleman is fitting the cap to himself too readily. It is common ground that he makes quite a lot of visits. I remember an occasion last year when he patted himself on the back for being the only hon. Member who had troubled to visit the Infantry School on Salisbury Plain.

Mr. Wigg: It is true that I made that visit; it is now nearly three years ago. I also went to 38 Group with the hon. Gentleman, but I took good care to pay my own expenses. I went under my own steam. I tried to attend Conference "Prospect", but I was denied the opportunity to do so. I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) to visit the V-bomber force, but we did not have the opportunity of doing so.
I have been interested in the subject of Royal Air Force hospitality and facilities for some time. I have been corresponding with the Secretary of State on it. I should like to know—and I have written to him on this point—how many ex-members of the Air Council who are now directors of aircraft companies have

been given facilities to visit R.A.F. stations at home and abroad at the public expense. It is time that the public knew the truth about this, and about the influences which are being exerted in a very delicate field.
I have nothing against serving officers at the end of their careers getting employment in aircraft companies; good luck to them. I have no objection to any hon. Member on either side of the Committee visiting R.A.F. stations or any other stations. I do what I think is right, and other hon. Members do what they think is right. We are not helped by the impertinent remarks from jumped-up pups of the kind that we had a few minutes ago.
Great issues of public importance are involved here. This is a highly sensitive field. Above all, the public need to know the truth. We were not given the truth a few months ago about a very important matter of equipment. I do not want to make any innuendoes, or cast aspersions of any sort, but I am determined to use every opportunity to make sure that these facts are given.
If the Under-Secretary cannot give us an assurance today that this information will be made available, we shall have to seize future opportunities of raising the matter again.

Mr. Farey-Jones: I have listened to the remarks of the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) with great interest. Surely, part of their argument is wrong. If an hon. Member, irrespective of party, wishes first-hand information about an R.A.F. station, that should not be the subject of invitation from his Whips. He should be afforded that opportunity in his own right and it should be automatically accorded to him. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that, because that is my view?

Mr. Wigg: Of course, I accept that. The fact remains, however, that when my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire and myself asked to be allowed to visit the V-bomber force we were not allowed to go. We did not make a song and dance about it. Our request was turned down by the Secretary of State, and he had every right, in the discharge of his duties, to turn us down. Other


people are allowed to go. I make nothing of that, but we have the right to bring these things out in the open.

4.20 p.m.

Mr. Ridsdale: I do not want to make a mountain out of a molehill on this entertainment expenditure, some of which will be used for the comfort of hon. Members when they pay their much-appreciated visits to Royal Air Force stations overseas. I am sure that that would be the wish of hon. Members on both sides. I want it to be realised concerning the Royal Air Force that the facilities are available equally to hon. Members on both sides. I assure the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) that if he gets in touch with me, or my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and points out any unfairness, we will see that it is dealt with at once.
What I object to is when the hon. Member for Dudley gets up in the House of Commons and says that hon. Members have not been given the truth and, in the very next sentence, states that he does not want to cast innuendoes. Statements of that kind are not consecutive. To satisfy, I hope, what the hon. Member for Dudley has said, I will publish the names of the Members of Parliament and noble Lords who went on the arranged visits at home and overseas last year and which will be repeated this year.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £128,120,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, etc., of the Air Force, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964.

Vote 2. Reserve and Auxiliary Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £689,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the reserve and auxiliary services and cadet forces (to a number not exceeding 61,840, all ranks, for the Royal Air Force Reserve, and 1.200, all ranks, for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964.

4.23 p.m.

Mr. Mulley: The Committee probably will not want to spend as much time on this Vote, as a smaller sum of money is

involved, but there are, perhaps, three matters about which we should ask. The first concerns the amount for the Royal Air Force Reserve, which, I notice, is to be substantially less than last year, despite the fact that the Reserve pay or the pay on training has, presumably, gone up and will be higher as a result of the general increase in Service pay. Does the reduction in the Vote mean that the R.A.F. Reserve is gradually being reduced? Can we be told the Government's policy concerning the future of this Reserve?
Secondly, in roughly the same kind of context, can the Under-Secretary of State tell us a little about the policy for university air squadrons? I have heard that these are less popular with young men than they were. Does the Air Council still look towards the university air squadrons to provide a substantial number of reserve officers for the Air Force? What is the policy with regard both to grants to the university air squadrons and to encouraging these squadrons to carry on as hitherto?
Thirdly, we should like to pay tribute to the voluntary work that is done within the Royal Observer Corps, but I wonder whether the Corps has very much to do with the Royal Air Force. I note that in the appropriations, about two-thirds of the total cost of the Corps is met by the Home Office, presumably because it fulfils more of a civil defence than of a military function. A residue falls, however, upon the Air Ministry Vote. Will the Under-Secretary tell us why this function seems to be shared between the two Departments and why we have this cross-posting of Votes? Would it not be more satisfactory if the Home Office took charge of the financial support to the Royal Observer Corps as a whole?

4.26 p.m.

Colonel Sir Harwood Harrison: I support what the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) has said about the Royal Observer Corps. I am glad to see that the grants and allowances to the spare-time officers and observers are substantially increased, by approximately one-third. I presume that the numbers of personnel has not been increased to this extent, but that it is the allowances and grants to the officers and men which have been increased.
Everyone will welcome the higher allowances and grants, because these


men perform a very useful function in defence, whether on the military or on the civilian side. In addition, they serve in extremely lonely units, comprising, perhaps, only two men in one place, one man somewhere else and three elsewhere. There are a number of them in my constituency, and I should like to thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of Stale for this recognition of them in the way of higher allowances in the coming year.
I should like to put a question to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary concerning Subhead D, "Grants, etc., to Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Associations". I have been a military member of the Suffolk Association for fifteen years. Periodically, we hear from the Air Force side that they do not get as big an allowance for certain of the functions of the cadets as is given by the Army Council. This sometimes has an invidious result. This year, I notice, the grant is down by £5,000. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will consider this point and at least aim at giving parity with the Army.

4.28 p.m.

Mr. Colin Turner: I notice that the Estimate for Subhead C, "Royal Auxiliary Air Force", is only slightly less than the figure for last year. I wonder whether this indicates that the City of London Security Squadron is to continue, or whether a decision has not yet been reached to disband it, which has been the fear of many of its members.
I notice that in Subhead E, the administrative expenses for the Air Training Corps are down by £5,000. I hope that this is not just a matter of cheese-paring. I am glad to see that the salaries and allowances of officers are higher, but I hope that the reduction of £5,000, although it is only a small item in the millions of pounds that we are dealing with, does not represent an attempt to cut back the wonderful work that this organisation is doing. It should be given every possible encouragement.

4.29 p.m.

Mr. Antony Buck: I should like to reinforce what the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) has said about the university air squadrons. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State knows, we are to have the new University of Essex partly in

his constituency and partly in mine. I should like to know from my hon. Friend what is to be the policy of his Department under this Vote as to the possibility of establishing a university air squadron at this new university. Do the sums already included in the Vote represent any planning which may have been done for the establishment of a squadron at Colchester, or, indeed, at any of the other new universities?
The University of Essex would, perhaps, be particularly well suited for the establishment of a university air squadron, since the vice-chancellor is himself a former Royal Air Force fighter pilot and played an active part in the working of the university air squadron at the University of Liverpool.
I wonder whether, in dealing with that point, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will take the opportunity to scotch the rumours, which undoubtedly have been prevalent, that the future of university air squadrons at other universities may he thought to be in some way in jeopardy. My information is that their popularity has not declined, that they are still very well supported and that those who co-operate in organising them at the universities speak most highly of the contribution which they make to the character-building, and so on, of young people at universities.
Perhaps my hon. Friend can tell us whether he has had any co-ordination with other Service Departments with a view to determining whether it shall be an air squadron, an O.C.T.U., or a naval training school which is established at the new universities.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Ridsdale: The reason for the reduction in the Vote for the Royal Air Force Reserve, about which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) asked, is that the Reserve will be slightly smaller this year than last year. Its future size will depend upon the outcome of consideration which we are at present giving to Reserve policy. I hope that it will not be long before we are able to make an announcement.

Mr. Mulley: Will either the hon. Gentleman or his right hon. Friend make an announcement to the House when a decision is taken to revise the Reserve?

Mr. Ridsdale: The announcement will be made in due time. I cannot say exactly when, but I hope that it will be made fairly soon.
The question of the university air squadrons has been raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck). I am grateful for the remarks that have been made. First, I would say to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park that the university air squadrons are no less popular indeed we are greatly encouraged by the support that we are getting towards the university air squadron. I would like to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester that I shall have the utmost sympathy with the remarks that he has made to see that when the University of Essex is established at Colchester we have perhaps the best university air squadron in the country.
As I said in a recent debate, the university air squadrons are a very valuable source of recruitment for all branches of the Royal Air Force, particularly of pilots. Last year, 77 members of the university air squadrons were granted commissions in the Royal Air Force of which 55 were as aircrews. This is a higher figure than we have previously achieved, and I hope that this trend will continue, as we have every reason to believe that it will. Equally important is that the wastage rate in flying training, as with our ex-scholarship boys, is significantly lower than among other direct entrants.
The university air squadrons cost about £1,300,000 a year, which is much the same as two years ago. Economies have been made and have offset pay and price increases during the period. It is not only the numbers but the saving in training which makes the squadrons so valuable to the Royal Air Force. I would like to point out that about one-fifth of all the air rank officers in the General Duties Branch are graduates and that more than half of these are ex-university air squadron men.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye (Sir H. Harrison) paid a kind tribute to the members of the Royal Observer Corps, for which I thank him. My hon. and gallant Friend and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked me questions about the Corps. The Royal Observer Corps has continued to build

up its strength during the past year and the total membership of the Corps, I am glad to say, has increased. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked me why does not the Home Office pay the entire cost of the Royal Observer Corps. In 1963–64, the Home Office will bear 80 per cent. of the running cost of the Corps. This recognises its major interest in the work of the Royal Observer Corps which is concerned with civil defence, that is, the reporting of nuclear bursts and fallout. The share of 20 per cent. still borne on the Air Vote is in respect of our interest in low level aircraft recognition and reporting.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye questioned me about the Territorial Associations. The grants to these Associations are slightly down because the expenditure on building maintained by the Associations is expected to be smaller in the current year. I assure him that there has been no change of policy with regard to the Territorial Associations, which play a very great part in the reserve forces of the Royal Air Force, as they do for the Army as well.
I was asked a question about the County of London Security Squadron by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Turner). It is true that the future continuation of this squadron is under consideration. No decision has yet been reached, although we expect to make one shortly. I know that its members, who are very keen and devoted, are disturbed by the possibility of its disbandment, and I would share their regret if it were decided that the squadron had reached the end of its useful life. It is, however, a fact that the scope for the useful employment of these enthusiastic reserves has become small in recent years and we are finding it increasingly difficult to justify the not inconsiderable cost involved. I assure the Committee that we are well aware of the squadron's excellent spirit and that no decision will be taken without the most careful and sympathetic consideration at a high level.
I should like to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West that he need have no fears about the £5,000 which we have been able to cut down in the expenditure of the A.T.C. because, as President of the A.T.C., I am most


anxious to see that this Corps flourishes now as it has done in the past.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £689,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the reserve and auxiliary services and cadet forces (to a number not exceeding 61,840, all ranks, for the Royal Air Force Reserve and 1.200, all ranks, for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force) which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.

Vote 7. Aircraft and Stores

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £244,000,000. be granted to Her Majesty to defray the expense of aircraft and stores which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.

4.37 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: I note that 65 minutes have gone by since we started our proceedings and that in that time we have approved expenditure on Votes 1 to 6 of roughly £244 million. Now we come to Vote 7 and another £240 million is involved, and the Chamber is empty. We are now discussing matters which are vital to the security of this country at present and in the future. I protest against the form which these discussions take. I protested in the defence debate, and I shall go on protesting every time this matter comes up.
In other countries, even in the Soviet Union, I suspect that there must be deliberations between groups of men who have the advantage of having the facts in front of them before they are asked to make a decision. Only here, in the Mother of Parliaments, are we given two pages of print, with not a single reference to a specific aircraft either being built or planned. I cannot help contrasting the document which I have here, presented by the American Secretary of State for Defence, Mr. McNamara, to the House of Representatives on 30th January this year, in which he deploys the facts and arguments covering the American Government's expenditure for the next four years.
There is not a weapon, there is not a missile which is not intelligently discussed in terms which can be understood by the ordinary man. Later, as I understand it, under the American system, these estimates will be again

examined with the advantages of having papers and persons to give evidence. Only here do we go along in this sloppy, slipshod, anachronistic way, blinding ourselves to facts, or knowing nothing of the facts, caring nothing of the facts and asking no questions which could in any way be regarded as awkward. I do not propose to play this game any longer. I propose to examine this proposed expenditure of £244 million with some care even if it takes a little time.
First, let me take the remarks used by the hon. Gentleman the Under-Secretary as a rebuke to me. He said that I suggested that the Government did not tell the truth. That is exactly what I did say—it does not tell the truth about aircraft. Take, for example, one simple fact. The Secretary of State's Memorandum for last year said, in paragraph 21:
The development of the Skybolt air-launched ballistic missile in the United States is making good progress.
That was a barefaced lie.
Mr. McNamara the American Secretary for Defence, reveals in this statement which I have here, an official American publication, that in actual fact there had been only six successful launchings in 1962. He says:
In fact, there are compelling reasons for believing that even these latest estimates "—
the latest estimates on which took the decision about Skybolt—
are still very unrealistic, and that the actual costs would be much higher.
He goes to say that the estimated figure of costs was 3 billion dollars.
Then he goes on:
For example, the Skybolt development program was far behind schedule on the program that was supposed to be completed for 492.6 million dollars. According to that program, there were supposed to be 28 test flights by the end of 1962, when, in fact there were only six.
He then goes on to make it quite clear that of all the missiles which were available to the United States Skybolt
would have the lower payload and poorer accuracy of the missile—indeed, as designed it would have had the lowest accuracy, reliability and yield of any of our strategic missiles…
Yet we were told by the Secretary of State a year ago, and have been told by Government spokesmen on many occasions since that date, that everything in the garden was lovely.

Mr. Eden: I am not trying to trip the hon. Gentleman up, but am purely seeking information. Can he give the dates of the two documents?

Mr. Wigg: Oh yes, I have already done that. The American document am holding is dated 30th January, 1963. I said so. The Secretary of State's Memorandum was for 1962–63. That was last year, but we do not have a missile, sinking, from success into calamitous failure and forcing the Government to cut their losses in so short a time as that. Indeed, in point of time, although there is a lapse of some months, we were told a year ago, in definite terms that it was making good progress. Now we know that statement was completely untrue.

Mr. Farey-Jones: I know that the hon. Member would not in any circumstances wish to give the wrong impression. Would he not accept, therefore, that among leading air opinion even in the United States there is grave disagreement with Mr. McNamara on whether Skybolt was a success or failure?

Mr. Wigg: I have no doubt whatever that there are considerable financial interests in the United States, associated with the Douglas Aircraft Company, who think that Skybolt should have gone on. What I am saying is that here is a carefully documented piece of evidence presented by Mr. McNamara to the House of Representatives, and which I find convincing. It may be that there are other hon. Members who will come to another conclusion. What I am pointing out is that here we have, on the one hand, from Mr. McNamara a documented, lucid, intelligent, explicit statement while we in this Chamber get a sentence only, in which, clearly, there was not a word of truth.
Having dealt with Skybolt, I propose to carry my exercise a little further. I remember speaking in this Chamber in 1956 on this subject. In 1956, I spoke of the British aircraft industry and its importance in relation to this country's prestige and power in the world. Again, I was making no party points, let me emphasise. I said:
I have drawn up a list of no fewer than 157 projects which have been started in the last ten years. Of those 157 projects, no fewer than 36, covering 29 different designs, ended

in crashes; that is to say, that of the 157 projects in the last ten years, no fewer than 18·6 per cent. came to untimely ends, in many cases unfortunately involving loss of life. That is by no means all the story. Of the 157 projects, there were only 16 which went to production runs of more than 3,000. My charge against both Governments, Labour and Conservative alike, is that they started to do far too much. This over-expansion applied not only in the air.—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 7th February, 1956; Vol. 548, c. 1631.]
That was in 1956.
What now is the position? This Government, in my judgment, are never satisfied with only one white elephant in the stable. They must always have three. As fast as they cancel one project they must move another one in. I refer to the past primarily in the vain hope that perhaps one can get things right for the future.
Let us have a look at some of the projects on which the Royal Air Force is currently engaged. Let us have a look at this in relation to the principle which the present Minister of Defence laid down. He said that we must, of course, have an export market and that we ought to be able to sell some of our defence products. Let us start with No. 1. I well remember the present Secretary of State for the Colonies coming here on 11th February, 1959—and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) will remember it, too—and making an announcement about the freighter version of the Britannic III. It started as the SC5 and a little later it was called the Britannic and eventually the Belfast.
The Minister forecast an export market for this aircraft. I remember raising the matter on the Adjournment, and, again, not on any party point. Indeed, I was in opposition to some of my hon. Friends on my own Front Bench. I forecast that the Minister would sell none, not because I had any specialised knowledge of aircraft but because by a little bit of homework and a little bit of diligence one can weigh these things up. Not one Belfast has been sold.
Let us move on. How many Valiants have been sold abroad? None. How many Javelins, the current Air Force fighter, have been sold abroad? None. How many Lightnings have been sold? None. So we can go on. It is true that we have sold some Hunters particularly


offshore sales. It is true that we have sold some Bloodhounds. But how many Sea Vixen, the DH110, have been sold? None. How many Scimitars? None. The Buccaneer? Yes, we sold some of them—but that, quite rightly, annoys some hon. Members on this side of the Committee. Because where did we sell them? We sold three to South Africa. Then there is the Belvedere. We took ten years to develop that helicopter. How many have we sold? We have not sold one.
I could weary the Committee by giving example after example of how the Air Force has developed types of weapons and types of aircraft for which there is no market. Not because their original conceptions may not have been brilliant. Indeed, and this is a tribute to our designers and our research workers and technologisits. The reason is that the policy-making machine is so lagging and so far behind that we are always too late.

Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: Would the hon. Gentleman not, in fairness, attribute some part of the fact that our recent fighter aircraft have not been sold, particularly in Europe, to the domination of the military procurement market in N.A.T.O. by American equipment, not necessarily on its technical merits?

Mr. Wigg: I have heard this one before. I am quite prepared to believe that there is vigorous selling by the Americans, with, perhaps, some arm twisting, but, unless we are to go under, then we have got to be vigorous, too, and we have got to do some arm twisting as well. Provided we have something to sell. I do not deny the accuracy of what the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) says. It may be truer than he supposes. What I am saying is that we must not just sit down. We have to do something or go out of business. It is the constructive side of this matter which interests me.
I was on the point of referring to the successor to the Hastings and the Beverley, the OR351. Goodness knows what pressure it has taken from both sides of the Committee, much of it from this side, to get the Minister of Aviation to face up to this one. His friend Mr. Chapman Pincher managed to give us what information he could, but it was rather

difficult to get a statement from the Government. However, finally, the point was reached when the Minister could retreat no further and we finally got a statement that this aircraft was going to Whitworth-Gloster.
We have not been told about the engine. What is to happen about that? Is it to have one? Is there a dispute between Bristol Siddeley and Rolls-Royce? In his wonderful way, the Minister came forward with a proposal that this aircraft should have the Pegasus V engine, but that it would be manufactured under licence by Rolls-Royce, but Rolls-Royce would not wear that.
It is vital to the Royal Air Force and to the Army that a decision on this matter should be taken. When is it proposed to take a decision about the engine for the AW681? When will the prototype fly? When will it be operational? How many do the Government expect to order? What are the prospects of selling it in the export market? Does the Minister of Defence come here to talk about selling British aircraft and then do nothing about it, or allow things to drift because decisions are politically inconvenient?
I agree at once that the decision about the 0R351 was politically difficult. It did not please the people of Northern Ireland and a number of other people. But the security of this country should be the paramount consideration and the decision should be taken in that light.

Mr. Shinwell: I agree that the Air Ministry has some responsibility and that it has to purchase aircraft requirements, but is it not true that the primary responsibility rests not on the Air Ministry, which does not produce the aircraft and which to a large extent does not design aircraft—that is in other hands—but on the Ministry of Aviation, and, before that Ministry came into existence, the Ministry of Supply?

Mr. Wigg: Again, I would not dissent from that point of view, but it is here that I get into a complete puzzle.
This brings me back to the point I was making earlier about senior Air Force officers who are engaged in taking vital decisions about future aircraft orders and designs who may go into business and become directors or even chairmen of


companies. This worries me a great deal. I repeat that I am making no allegations specifically against their honesty, or their personal honour, or their desire to serve the public good, but I cannot believe that points are not reached when the temptations and pressures are very great. The prime consideration should be the country's defence needs.
I also agree that business must be conducted on a viable basis and must be able to make a profit. One of the things I want is a strong aircraft industry, and if private enterprise can do the job, let it do it. I am not doctrinaire in these matters, but the evidence from the history of this industry since the war is that not only have the country's defence needs been overlooked, but so have its economic needs, because the aircraft industry now finds itself on the verge of bankruptcy. The official figures—not mine, but official figures—show that no less than £4,800 million has been spent in the aircraft industry in the last 15 years, of which no less than £3,400 million has come from public sources.
When the hon. Member for Tiverton interrupted me, I was dealing with the history of current aircraft. My first candidate for cancellation is one white elephant which has just been poked into the stable—the OR351, now the AW681. This will certainly be cancelled and I make that forecast with the same certainty as I did about the Belfast.
Let us move on to another aircraft nearer the heart of the Secretary of State for Air, the TSR2, about which he was kind enough to distort the facts against me. He commented on one of my odd absences from the House and thought that I had gone to the races. That was not true, because there were no races on that day, so I had no temptation, and even if there had been, I should still have been present in the Chamber. He said that I had said in the defence debate that the TSR2 would not fly. What I said was that it would fall flat on its face. Of course it will and in due course it will be cancelled and, again, I will proceed to tell the Committee why. This aircraft has a very interesting history.
This takes me back to the point made by the Under-Secretary, who has not been in the House of Commons all that

long, or he would not have been so keen about the use of the word "truth" in this connection. Let us start with the 1957 White Paper, of which paragraph 61 said:
Having regard to the high performance and potentialities of the Vulcan and Victor medium bombers and the likely progress of ballistic rockets and missile defence, the Government have decided not to go on with the development of a supersonic manned bomber, which could not be brought into service in much under ten years.
We then had the famous conference, "Prospect", of which I have a complete and verbatim account which I have kept because I thought that it would come in useful. My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and I were very anxious to go to that conference. We often hear talk about keeping the Services out of politics, but never was there a more perfect example of a Service getting caught up in politics than the calling of that conference. It was a major, organised effort to force the Government to change their minds about the manned bomber. My right hon. Friend is an ex-Minister of Defence and it was not very courteous to him—it does not matter about me—that he should not have been invited to attend. However, we have the verbatim account of what transpired at that conference which was organised by the Secretary of State for Air with the assistance of the Air Staff. I am here demonstrating the tie-up between the upper reaches of the Royal Air Force and the manufacturing side of the aircraft industry, a tie-up which is not in the country's long-term interest.
The conference took place and the TSR2 project was launched. The Government could not say that they had changed their minds about manned bombers, and so the then Secretary of State for Air on 17th December, 1958, shortly after the conference, in a Written Answer, said that the Royal Air Force was going in for a Canberra replacement. He called it a strike reconnaissance aircraft and said nothing about what it was really meant to be.
The Americans were coming along on the same lines. Mr. McNamara has related all this in the document which I have already quoted. The Americans have the A3J, the F4H and the F111 will be coming along at the same time as the TSR2. The other day the Under-Secretary said that its performance was


secret and that he could not say what the range was. My guess is that the combat range is 1,300 miles, that it will fly in about a year's time—it is somewhat behind schedule—that it is possible that the Government will order about 50, some et which will begin to fly in about 1967, and that the 50 might be complete about 1970.
The interesting thing about the TSR2 is that it ties up with another white elephant, the supersonic transport. I am sure that this one will come unstuck. The advice which I get in my constituency, where my constituents deal with alloys and aluminium, is that aluminium becomes very unstable at about 140 degrees. It is perfectly clear that the same temperature, even with an alloy of the metal proposed to be used in the supersonic aircraft, is round about 140 degrees.
That is the first reason why one becomes doubtful about it. But there is another reason. Note the reactions of the Americans. Do they dash in and want to build a supersonic aircraft? No, they stay in the background. They are learning all the time. They are making an examination and going into the problem of a project authorised by the President of the United States just after he came to office. It was then laid down that the future of supersonic civil flight was a major consideration and that the Americans must get into the field. But my guess is that they are laying back letting us get on with our researches and that, at the appropriate moment, they will announce that they will compete. It should be noted that the TSR2 and the supersonic transport have the same engine. They have the Olympus 22, although the one on the TSR2 is a reheat.
Does the Minister think that we have any chance in this field? May I remind hon. Members of one simple fact, something which is vividly in my mind? Let us see what our record is in this field. According to my reckoning, we have no civil aircraft—I do not think that anyone else has either—that can fly at Mach 1 or one that can fly in a straight line as fast as United States or Soviet aircraft can fly in a closed circuit. The F4H can fly at Mach 2 in a closed circuit and at Mach 2·7 in a straight line.
We not only "kid" ourselves but we also "kid" the British public, who are

not given the facts, into the belief that if we put up vast sums of money we can produce an aircraft that will sell in the markets of the world when we have no experience of any kind in this field. It would be taking a gigantic step forward even in the field in which we have knowledge at the speeds indicated. For anyone to pose a problem in that form is to convince me that it is just not on.
When it comes to terms of cost, it is true that as far as the Government are concerned the sky is the limit. The cost of the TSR2 before it is cancelled will be about £400 million and when it comes to the Mach 2 aircraft the cost of the two together will be more than £1,000 million. This is not a new experience. Any hon. Member who makes a list of the projects which have been started since this Administration came to power and of those which have been cancelled before work on them has gone very far will be startled to find how many are involved. Again, I pay tribute to Mr. Chapman Pincher who published a list a year or so ago, but this is only the fringe of the problem. Such things as Flashlight are not even talked about. They cost only £50 million. That is mere chicken feed in this field.
I do not point the finger of scorn at the Government because they have tried and failed. It is implicit in what Mr. McNamara and the Americans are doing. In fact, if one does not try one will not succeed, and if one does try one has lots of failures. But when the Americans start on 10 projects it is pretty certain that only five will be in existence a year later, and that eventually that five will be three, and, that ultimately three will be one.
The Government have played ducks and drakes not only with the nation's defences but also with its economy. I should have thought that Britain—not one of the two great Powers, but certainly the largest of the smaller Powers—must, in terms of prestige and in terms of the absolute basic requirement of keeping right in the forefront of technological advance, have a first-class aircraft industry capable of meeting much of air civil and defence needs. I think that that is a basic national requirement.
If I had had any shares in Rolls-Royce I should have sold them long ago because they are going "bust" as a result of the


policy of this Government, not because the company has broken down but because it cannot get any decisions out of the Government, and, even when it does, those decisions are not based on the technical facts and on our defence requirements but on the political expendiency of the moment. Therefore, when the Minister comes to the OR351 he dillies and dallies, and when he cannot do that any more he comes to the House, tells a quarter of the truth and has a meeting with hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies. But he does not deceive them. They have been let down as well. Therefore, everyone is let down by this weak-kneed, shilly-shallying, cowardly, ignorant collection which has loitered on the Front Bench opposite for far too long.
How can we put this right? There must be a partnership. The amounts of public money involved are very great. We cannot go on for ever pouring out public money without having some say in how it is spent. Here, again, I should have thought that the Americans had indicated the line to take. President Kennedy took office in 1961 and within a matter of weeks he had appointed an administrator. He said to him, "In 60 days' time I want to be given the projects which the American aircraft industry should pursue during the next ten years." In my view, there should be a partnership between the Government, industry and defence needs. Clearly, in this field the defence needs are basic. What has happened so far has not satisfied the defence needs, the needs of the economy or the Government's own supporters. Indeed, I do not think that it has even satisfied the Government themselves.
If one does research into the current situation one finds that there are 300 projects, not 157, as in 1956, and we cannot find a real winner among the lot. If we have sold any abroad it has been by accident. The Viscount was a successful accident. We had a bit of luck and it came off. I do not want to weary the Committee by going over our record in aircraft and missiles, but the record in missiles is as bad as the record in aircraft. In 1956 and 1957 we were in similar shape and we then got the Government to produce a White Paper concerning military aircraft.
Why cannot we be given another White Paper now? Why cannot we have an exhaustive inquiry by the Government, not a weekend at Chequers, a public relations exercise, in the hope that the Government can get away with it? Why do not the Government come forward with constructive proposals which would at least give hope for the future, a hope which could be buttressed by private endeavour and public money so that the workers, the researchers, the designers, the fundamental researches and the entre-preneurs can feel that we are making a contribution to the country's well-being not only in the field of defence but in building up an aircraft industry which will stand us in good stead.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) gets more and more pessimistic as the years go by. I have listened to him speaking in several of these debates. First, he asks why we do not sell more, and then he spends the next half hour running down our products and the aircraft industry. I should like to know what good that does to the aircraft industry, and what good it does to say that Rolls-Royce will be bankrupt in a few years.
The hon. Member for Dudley mentioned an aircraft made in my constituency, the Belfast air freighter, and said that, like many others, none had been sold. For the sake of the record I should like to make it clear that this aircraft has not yet flown. Some interest has been shown in it, not only by B.O.A.C. but by other civil airlines, and there are still high hopes that this aircraft will sell well when it flies, and not only to the Royal Air Force.
I do not want to go into the decision about the OR351, because this was exhaustively debated a week ago. I agree that mistakes often appear to be made by the experts who advise my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I need mention only the Mosquito, the Beverley, the Viscount and the Vickers 1,000, all of which were turned down by experts in the first instance. The decision on them all except the Vickers 1,000 was later reversed and they turned out to be magnificent aircraft, and I am certain that the Belfast will prove to be an excellent one, too.
The hon. Member for Dudley said that this country's prime consideration should be defence. When placing an order for an aircraft like the OR351, I think that two other considerations should be borne in mind. First, the cost of the aircraft—and no one knows what the cost of the WG681 will be—and, secondly, the speed of delivery. I suggest that the Belfast would meet these two requirements much better than the Whitworth Gloster project. Therefore, as I think has been made clear to the Committee, there has been great disappointment that further Belfasts have not been ordered to meet the delay in the time factor.
My friends in Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland Ltd. advise me that the Minister of Aviation is incorrect when he says that there will not be a rundown of employment but that it will be maintained in building and sub-contract work until 1970. There is fear that in about two or three years the sub-contract work which Northern Ireland has today will fall off and that the work force will not be maintained at 6,000.
This subject was last debated about ten days ago, and I should like to know what has come out of the conference at Chequers over the weekend about which we have read in the papers. It was said in the official communiqué that decisions would be taken through the normal channels. As this is the first opportunity of raising the matter in the House, I should like to know what decisions have been taken as a result of this high-level meeting at Chequers between the Minister of Aviation, leaders of the aircraft industry, and the chairman of B.O.A.C., concerning the aircraft industry.
It may be said—and here I refer particularly to Appendix VII of the Air Estimates—that this is a matter for the Ministry of Aviation, but I hope that my hon. Friend will give me some information on this point, because, if I have correctly understood it—and this was the theme of the defence debate—the Ministry of Aviation is to be transferred to the Ministry of Defence. It is on this Estimate that the subject comes up for discussion, because £244 million of the taxpayers' money is involved. I should therefore like to know what part of the Ministry of Aviation is to be swallowed by the Ministry of Defence.

Mr. Shinwell: Surely the hon. Gentleman is wrong? It was expressly stated by the Minister of Defence when he developed his case for the reorganisation of our Defence Departments that this matter of the Ministry of Aviation being swallowed by the Ministry of Defence was left very much in the open.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Norman Hulbert): The right hon. Member and the hon. Member cannot, on this Estimate, discuss whether or not the Ministry of Aviation is to be swallowed up.

Mr. McMaster: The right hon. Gentleman says that this question has been left open and I do not know what is to happen to the Ministry of Aviation. I was therefore asking for information, because I thought it was material to this debate. Further, one sees a reference to this in Appendix VII of the Estimates. However, I leave the matter there.
I notice a big change in this year's debate compared with last year's debate on the Air Estimates. Last year there seemed to be great emphasis on developing a few versatile types of aircraft which would serve many functions. For instance, it was suggested in relation to transport aircraft that if one versatile strategic freighter was developed this could be adapted at low cost to the taxpayer for other functions, and the same would apply to the TSR2 and other aircraft.
There now seems to be a change of attitude, and I should like to know how this is related to the decisions made at Nassau. Is it a fact that more money is being made available because we are switching from Skybolt to Polaris? Is this why it has been decided to give the OR351 to Whitworth Gloster? Is this why the Secretary of State for Air does not object to a greater expenditure of money on a jet aircraft designed to meet a specific and particular purpose as a tactical freighter than would have been acceptable last year? If there has been this change of policy, why is there no mention of it in the memorandum accompanying the Air Estimates and other White Papers which have been published recently?
Finally, I make the point which has already been made by the hon. Member for Dudley, that it must be the function


of the Secretary of State for Air, together with the Minister of Aviation and the Minister of Defence, to consider the specific requirements of our aircraft manufacturing industry and to spread out the work. When I say spread the work, I mean spread, in particular, the design work. I do not want to discuss this point again, because it has already been discussed as great length—

Mr. John Rankin: want to check two words which I thought I heard the hon. Gentleman use. Did I understand him to say that he wants the work spread out?

Mr. McMaster: Yes, I said that. About ten days ago I said that perhaps a second loan for the WG681 should be provided by Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland Ltd., and this was dealt with by my hon. Friend. The design staff in the aircraft manufacturing industry are the cream of the industry. They are highly skilled, and we do not want them to go abroad. We do not want them to be attracted to America. It is essential that these intelligent people are given sufficient work to do so that they can not only be employed, but given hope for the future. I hope that tonight my hon. Friend will be able to give these men more encouragement than he was able to do last week.

5.19 p.m.

Mr. Shinwell: If I were in the position of the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), I would make a speech in precisely the terms he did. The hon. Gentleman represents an area of high unemployment. He is concerned primarily with the production of aircraft. We all applaud his sincerity, but we are not discussing unemployment in Belfast, or Northern Ireland, or anywhere else. We are discussing the expenditure of £244 million. As they say in the United States, this is a whale of a sum, it is an awful lot of potatoes. That is how they talk in the Bronx; not in exclusive circles.
It is a very substantial sum of money, and the question we have to consider, having regard to that substantial amount, is: are we getting value for the money? And, more important, what is it about? For there is no information in the document except vague information about airframes being produced and engines being produced and maintenance and the like. Nothing specific is mentioned.

Mr. McMaster: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that when determining value for money we should leave out social considerations entirely?

Mr. Shinwell: That is not a suggestion which ought to be made to me. I have been far too long engaged in political affairs to ignore social considerations.
But we are not considering social considerations at the present time; we are considering whether we should spend this substantial sum of money. Over and above that we are considering what it is all about. I repeat: there is no information of a specific character in the document. Not a single aircraft is mentioned.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) was right in his submissions to the Committee. We had a short discussion earlier about hon. Members gaining information on matters of this kind. The speech of my hon. Friend fortifies the need for hon. Members to be furnished with more information on matters of this sort before we agree to such an expenditure as this. I shall not pretend that I am as expert on the subject as my hon. Friend. I merely wish to say—as I ventured to indicate in the intervention I made during his speech—that it seems to me that the Secretary of State for Air and the Under-Secretary of State are not the villains of the piece. It is the Ministry of Aviation, both civil and military.
Previous to the creation of the Ministry of Aviation, when there was a Ministry of Supply, for a long period of years before its abolition, I made submissions to various Prime Ministers and Ministers of Defence that the Ministry of Supply should be abolished. It was responsible for a vast expenditure and, in the end, very little was gained. That is the reason for this document and this vast expenditure. That is the reason why it is impossible for the Under-Secretary of State to furnish the Committee with the required information. At the end of his speech my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley referred to the need for some means of dealing effectively with this subject. How can hon. Members and the country be better informed? How can we justify this expenditure? It seems to me that the only way it can be done is for the Government—it is their responsibility—to find ways and means of furnishing


specific, accurate information to hon. Members.
I would go so far as to say that in a matter of this kind—as was the case in respect of many incidents during the last war—it might sometimes be desirable to have a secret session in order that hon. Members might be informed. I am unable to say whether the result would be of any value. But what is the position during the proceedings of this Committee? The Under-Secretary cannot give us any more information than is contained in the document. I doubt whether the hon. Gentleman is in a position to reply to my hon. Friend. So I propose to deal with one item alone.

Mr. Wigg: My right hon. Friend has mentioned a secret session. The suggestion is somewhat of a "red herring". Would my right hon. Friend be kind enough at some time to read the statement by Mr. McNamara to the House of Representatives? In it, he will see that weapon by weapon, service by service, bombers, fighters, missiles, Mr. McNamara goes over them all. Incidentally, he must be giving the information to countries behind the Iron Curtain. But he gives the fullest possible information. Before we consider having secret sessions, could not we start a similar procedure?

Mr. Shinwell: I am aware that in the United States members of Congress, and senators, are furnished with much more information on defence matters than is provided to hon. Members in this House. Indeed, the information Department of the United States furnishes hon. Members of this House with a great deal of information about the United States defence organisation and provides a great deal of specific information about aircraft and various aspects of military organisation. But we are not likely to get that from this Government. That is the point. We may press as hard as we like, but we shall not get it.
May I digress and refer to something which occurred when I was Minister of Defence? I was disturbed about the position regarding aircraft. This happened some years ago. But I think the illustration will give hon. Members some idea of the difficulty facing a Minister of Defence, or anybody in a Service Department. I was disturbed, because,

despite our demands and the need for aircraft and—because of the tension in Europe and the Korean War—for particular kinds of aircraft, they were not forthcoming. Eventually, and after consulting the then Prime Minister, I succeeded in obtaining the services of a high-ranking official in another Service Department solely to secure information for myself and the staff at the Ministry of Defence about the reason why deliveries of aircraft were belated and why difficulties were being experienced all along the line in connection with the production of the necessary aircraft, As it happened, some months afterwards the Labour Government fell and I am unable to say what happened. But I would not be surprised if a similar situation has arisen during the period of office of the present Secretary of State for Air, or a previous Minister.
I will leave that point, because I wish to refer to the question of Skybolt. I find from the Supplementary Estimate that £1,400,000 has been expended because of the cancellation, but no information is furnished. I do not expect the Minister to tell us the reason why Skybolt was cancelled—

The Temporary Chairman: Order. The right hon. Gentleman may refer to the Supplementary Estimate where the figure of £1,400,000 is mentioned. But if he proposes to pursue the argument about the cancellation of Skybolt, it would be more pertinent to the discussion on the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Shinwell: I thought that your predecessor in the Chair, Sir Norman, said that the matter could be raised on Vote 7. It appears to me that it is relevant to Vote 7 because here we are considering the expenditure of a vast sum of money on aircraft production and the like, and surely it is appropriate and relevant that the question of the cancellation of one project should be considered in connection with that Vote. But if you say it cannot be raised at this stage, Sir Norman, I defer.

The Temporary Chairman: The right hon. Gentleman is in order in referring to the expenditure on Skybolt. But there is a special item for the cancellation of it. It would be better if he deferred his argument on that aspect until we reach the Supplementary Estimate. The Chair is


in some difficulty in not being aware whether all the expenditure on Skybolt is included in the Estimate which we are discussing.

Mr. Shinwell: I am much obliged, Sir Norman. I will try to deal with the matter in a more general fashion. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley referred to the cancellation of orders, to orders not being completed, and so on. Can the Under-Secretary explain why the Air Ministry supported the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Aviation in the search for a weapon which was to be obtained from the United States of America and which eventually was to involve the Government and the country in considerable expenditure? Can the hon. Gentleman explain why they did not proceed with this project? Why, for example—I think that this is in order, Sir Norman—in the expenditure of £244 million and the references to aircraft production and maintenance—no doubt this sum also covers research and development—is nothing said about the attempt to obtain Skybolt? Obviously it was just an afterthought which necessitated the submission of a Supplementary Estimate.
My specific question is this. When a Minister or a group of Ministers are responsible for a project, are convinced that the project is certain to be successful, promise the House of Commons or the Committee or the country, or all three combined, that the project will bear fruit in the course of a few years, and spend money on the project, why should they be allowed to escape? Surely they should be called upon to justify that expenditure? The previous Minister of Defence, the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson), who boasted that this project would be successful and would be in operation in the course of a few years, has now had to eat his words. At the same time he has undertaken the task of running one of our large industrial firms. I understand that he is receiving a very high salary. Surely the right hon. Gentleman ought to be brought to book for making these lavish promises and being responsible for this expenditure.
The present Minister of Defence and the Secretary of State for Air are equally responsible. It has been suggested by my party that we ought not to vote

against the Service Estimates. I agree, because I believe in a measure of defence, and I have always said so. If we are to justify our existence as Members of Parliament concerned with the interests of the country and concerned about expenditure, if ever there was any justification for voting against one of the Estimates it is the expenditure on a project which has proved to be completely unsuccessful. However, I am unable to do so, because I have not got my party's consent.
I therefore ask the Under-Secretary —I hope that he will reply to this question—whether it is the intention to surcharge the Ministers responsible for having failed to carry out their promises. Will there be any deduction from their salaries? The hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Farey-Jones), who is associated with the aircraft industry and occupies a very high position in it and is generally respected for his integrity, will agree with me in this. I appeal to him in this. What would happen in industry if a managing director made lavish promises about particular projects, asked his co-directors to agree to the expenditure of a vast sum of money, and then a few months later or a year or so later said, "I am sorry, gentleman. This project is not likely to come to fruition", without giving any reason? This is the position here. Except that we have been told that something has gone wrong at the United States end, we are left very much in the dark. If this were the position industry, what would the hon. Member for Watford say? He would ask for the resignation of the managing director.

Mr. Farey-Jones: indicated assent.

Mr. Shinwell: I ask the hon. Gentleman to agree with me now. I ask him to call for the resignation of the Ministers.

Mr. Farey-Jones: I understood the right hon. Gentleman to suggest a surcharge. I cannot see how that could be done.

Mr. Shinwell: I am not quite sure about it myself. It is an astonishing state of affairs. I do not blame the Air Ministry entirely. What has happened is due to a concatenation of unfortunate events, but somebody must be held responsible.
I come now to my conclusion. I am very much disturbed and bewildered by all this. My conclusion is that hon. Members must make up their minds that the Government must be pressed to give us more information on these matters. We are completely in the dark.

Mr. Paul Williams: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the problem is not only the question of the Ministers, but whether under any original agreement we had the right to get technical knowledge out of the development of the Skybolt project? Even if one were to concede that this is money down the drain, there may be some technical knowledge we can get out of the United States. What I hope that both he and I want to know is whether the Government have any of that knowledge.

Mr. Shinwell: The hon. Gentleman is on my point. Of course we ought to know whether we have gained anything as a result of the cancellation. Have we derived any technical knowledge, the hon. Gentleman asks. I, too, should like to know hat. How are we going to get to know? Who is going to tell us? Have we to go to the United States and ask Mr. McNamara? Who is going to pay our fares? Would that be part of the hospitality provided by the Air Ministry, to which references were made earlier? Would those who were delegated be selected by the Whips, because I would object to that at once?
I do not pretend to be an expert in these matters. I have no technical knowledge. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley may be all wrong, except that he is absolutely right to raise this question. We want to know whether we have got any value out of this. One million four hundred thousand pounds is a fair sum of money. I could tell the Government what to do with it. I have all sorts of ideas about that. I could provide more National Assistance for some of the poor people in my constituency. I might even be ready to give the hon. Member for Belfast., East some support in the direction, because if he cannot get aircraft he will have to get National Assistance. But I do not want to be out of order.
I appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. This is not a party matter. I am not raising a party point.

I appeal to hon. Members. I appeal to their integrity. I appeal to them to justify their existence as Members of Parliament and ensure that the Government are pressed to give us the information before we give them any money. That is our function in this Committee, and it is about time that we exercised our rights.
I am sorry I have been a little out of order, Sir Norman. However, even if I have been out of order, I have been absolutely right in what I have said, and that is worth something.

5.39 p.m.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), but with particular interest to the speech made earlier by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). Very often I find myself in sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's objectives, even if I do not agree with the arguments with which he recommends them. I thought that he cast a somewhat unnecessarily gloomy historical perspective on the successes of British military aviation equipment in the export market. I have not had time to check the list of military aircraft sold abroad because I was not sure when I would catch your eye, Sir Norman. However, I have jotted down that the Canberra bomber was sold in Rhodesia, New Zealand, Venezuela, Peru, Pakistan and India and was made under licence in large quantities in America. The Hunter was sold in Equador, Iraq, Jordan, Denmark and elsewhere, the Folland Gnat was sold in Yugoslavia and Finland, and the Shackleton in South Africa. The NA39 Blackburn Buccaneer was sold in South Africa and the Avro 748 in India.

Mr. Wigg: I did not mention the Canberra because the Labour Party has been attacked from time to time for having placed very large orders for the Canberra and I thought that if I mentioned this aircraft I should have been making a point in favour of the Labour Government. I mentioned the Hunter and the offshore sales which the hon. Member mentioned. I also mentioned the Buccaneer as having been sold in South Africa, but I regret that I did not mention the Shackleton, although I was aware of the facts about this aircraft.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I was endeavouring to introduce a perspective into this matter by naming the scope and the countries in which they were sold. I agree in general with a point made by the hon. Member for Dudley that what one hopes to get out of the production of the majority of aircraft is a ready export market for them.
It does not surprise me to learn that none of our V-bombers was ordered abroad. The conception of the V-bomber was really as a nuclear bomb carrying aircraft. I appreciate that it had a secondary role with conventional high explosive bombs, but I would not have thought that it would have been purchased by any country without nuclear bombs; so I suppose its market was rather limited—to Russia and America.

Mr. Wigg: Would the hon. Member say the same thing about the Valiant? I did not mention the Vulcan and the Victor for the reasons given by the hon. Member.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Some customers might have considered the Valiant, but instead they tended to buy Canberras because they thought they would get more for their money.
When we look at the success of the British aircraft industry in the export market—and here I take issue with the hon. Member for Dudley regarding the supersonic project—we must consider that what was produced was of a kind then unique and before it was produced in any other country. I would not have said that the success of the Viscount was due to an accident: it was as a result of it being the only turbo-prop aircraft that money could buy at that time. That is certainly why 320 of them were sold in the export market; although I agree that, after a while, there were competitors. In evidence of this point, the Handley Page Herald was not offered as a turbo-prop until after Fokker got into the export market, and that is why the Friendship has been sold in large quantities.
The Comet I caused considerable interest abroad until it got into trouble, and the Comet IV received a lot of interest in its early stages and sold well, although I agree that interest dropped off later on. So this brings me on to the question of the supersonic aircraft and I

suggest that, on the basis of this trend of thought, if one is to produce an aircraft of this type there is considerable evidence at hand to suppose that, if it is to be sold, the aircraft had better be produced first of all.
If one wants to produce a supersonic aircraft, then for heaven's sake give it the greatest sales appeal possible. This has not been done, for political reasons, I suspect, rather than for engineering reasons. This is indeed unfortunate, and I hope that it is not too late to correct what has happened. I think it extremely unlikely that a project of this technical complexity and innovation will attract a market if the engines are produced by one French company which has never produced any civil engines and a British company which is conspicuous for the lack of civil jet engines it has succeeded in selling abroad. Whatever happens, I do not disagree with the decision that, if we are to produce this aircraft, it should be an Anglo-French supersonic one.
The last example I would offer in this connection is the B.A.C. 111 of which a considerable number of orders were secured before it had flown. It is the first in the field of its type, although I appreciate that a competitor has arisen. There may be another competitor from Douglas, although we do not know. If that second competitor does come along it may reduce a considerable number of the orders the B.A.C. 111 would have gained. I have made these remarks lest the observations of the hon. Member for Dudley are taken at large to mean that our military procurement policy over the last decade has not resulted in export sales. I have endeavoured to offer a suggestion why the V-bombers were not ordered abroad and I have shown that the primary reason why the Lightning was not sold abroad was political rather than technical.
It does not surprise me to know that the Javelin did not sell abroad. At that time there was tremendous pressure from the Americans to sell their Lockheed F.104, lock, stock and barrel, to the N.A.T.0, air forces instead of, for example, Denmark taking the Lightning after its Hunter 6s. I expect the Lockheed F.104s will take its place. There was strong political pressure going on at the time with a large cash assistance,


or assistance in kind, being given which we could not offer to put behind our aircraft.
There is little doubt that we could have sold the Lightning in India if a price policy had been invented from our point of view so that the competition offered by the Russian fighter could have been met, although that would have involved us in selling some Lightnings at a price which would not have been a profitable one; and I share the view that when selling aircraft it should be on a profitable basis.
Thus I am not altogether surprised that our military aircraft have not met with too much success in the export market in the last three or four years. I do not want to make predictions about whether or not the TSR2 will succeed or even whether it will sell abroad. One cannot possibly know that now because the time scale is too far ahead. Nevertheless, I wish to re-emphasise the plea I have made on many occasions that our military aircraft procurement policy should be coherent. Unfortunately, it demonstratively is not.
In emphasising the necessity for an adequate procurement policy, it must be remembered, first, that the operational requirements of the R.A.F. and the Royal Navy should be met. Secondly, if possible those requirements should be compatible with the operational requirement of potential purchasers abroad because the unit costs will he reduced in that way, apart from the beneficial foreign currency aspects of the matter. Thirdly, to a large extent public expenditure should be channelled into success rather than into failure. It should not be used so much as a form of national assistance as a reward for success and for technical merit.
If an aircraft firm produces a very good aircraft and is given an order for it, that should not be a reason for the firm not getting another order afterwards. The pack of cards should not be dealt round, for the good reason that there are not enough cards in the pack to deal them round and to keep everybody alive. The aircraft industry is too large for our domestic, military and civil market and for our export market. The choice of how public expenditure should be canalised is a choice in which we must pick out certain elements within the British

aircraft industry and say, "By your technical merits and by your commercial achievements you have demonstrated that you are more likely to remain alive in a highly competitive world, with quite a lot of the American aircraft industry tottering on the verge of collapse, than are other firms." These firms of outstanding technical merit who have proved their merit by other people spending their money on their products should be the firms to which the money is directed.
The fourth plank in this policy is that expenditure of this kind has a social impact. It can surely be said without fear of contradiction that at Short Brothers and Harland when men are laid off there is no alternative employment for them in the immediately foreseeable future. I do not think that this can as accurately he said of aircraft firms in the area surrounding Coventry; just do not believe it.
These are the four planks out of which we should extract a coherent procurement policy, and an appreciation of them is not obvious when one looks at the procurement policy over the past six years, and in particular of the OR351 where, as I am afraid I have had to say before and as I shall doubtless have to say again, a firm has been selected which is probably of the least technical merit of any firm left in the industry. It is a firm which has no experience whatever of VTO. The system which it is to adopt is the one which was developed by Shorts, not that developed by the Hawker-Siddeley group.
On these grounds, to give the contract to Gloster-Whitworth seems to be a decision totally void either of technical merit or of economic merit in terms of general policy. In saying this, I do not wish in any way to criticise the design of the aircraft. I have not studied it. It may be an excellent design. But that does not mean that it must be made by Gloster-Whitworth.
If I leave my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State with these ideas, I hope that he and my right hon. Friend will apply their minds to working out without delay a coherent procurement policy, which is so sadly lacking at the moment.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: I am sure that the hon. Member for


Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) will forgive me if I do not follow his most interesting argument. I agree with him in his wish to try to bring coherence out of what is near chaos at the moment. He is animated by the same desire as is my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), who wants to see a strong aircraft industry in this country. Later he asked for a "first-class industry". Those views are echoed throughout the Chamber, and part of our job is to see how they can be achieved. I do not want to develop that aspect but to speak mainly on one aspect of the industry which appeals to me as a Scottish Member.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) very gently chided the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) on making a speech which to some extent might have been more appropriate in a debate on unemployment. Nevertheless, that is an aspect of the problem which appeals to many of us. My right hon. Friend referred to the total expenditure—£244 million. It is a vast sum, and he pointed out that we seemed not to get a great deal of information about how that sum was being spent and on what it was being spent. But in the paragraph which deals with the Air Estimates we are told that
where aircraft are purchased complete their costs are charged in full to this item,
In other words, we are told that aircraft are being purchased complete and that they appear in an item which totals £51,100,000. It would be pertinent to ask the Minister how many aircraft were purchased complete. Will he also tell us something about the types of aircraft which have been purchased complete?

Mr. Mulley: Or will be purchased.

Mr. Rankin: Or will be purchased, because we are dealing with the year ahead. The Minister has made a definite statement that aircraft are purchased, and before we agree to the expenditure of the money we are entitled to know more about those aircraft. My right hon. Friend said very properly that the important thing for us in discussing the Estimate is to know what we are getting for the money, but I am sure that the House will forgive me if I look at another aspect which is equally important. Not only should we ask what we are getting for the money but we should ask where we are spending the money.
I agree with the hon. Member for Belfast, East who followed the same line, because he was interested in where this vast sum of money, or parts of it, were being spent. We know that some of it is being spent on Beverley aircraft and other types of aircraft made in Belfast. We wish them well and we wish them a greater share of the expenditure—in which Scotland participates to a very minimum extent. We are estimating for £244 million. Those of us who are taxpayers pay our contribution towards that sum, and a large part of it is gathered in Scotland.

Mr. Farey-Jones: Not all of it.

Mr. Rankin: I am not suggesting that we pay all of it, but we pay our fair share. If the money is partly gathered in Scotland, then we are entitled to stake a claim for the spending of an equitable part of that money in Scotland.
I therefore look at three of the items in Vote 7. The first is £84 million for airframes. This is a large sum of money and it is not unfair to point out that we have only 2,000 people employed in Scotland on the construction of airframes. Out of an aircraft industry which employs a total of between 280,000 and 290,000 people only 12,000 are employed in Scotland, 10,000 of them on aero-engines and 2,000 on airframes, and even that part of the industry is beginning to disappear almost completely. I do not think that that is the way to build a sound economy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley said he wanted to see not only a first-class industry but a national aircraft industry. If it is to be a national industry not only should the money be collected from all parts of the nation, as it is, but, following up the arguments of the hon. Member for Belfast, East, it should be spread over the nation as a whole. This is not happening now. I claim that the Government ought to be doing something towards bringing that about. It is the function of a Government to see not only that the money for the Service is raised but equally that that money is so spent that it benefits fairly the whole of the nation which provides it.
This was the aim of the Labour Government in 1945. When I came to the House in that year, this industry was largely based on the home counties and


London was its centre. The Board of Trade under a Labour Minister decided to encourage the industry to spread out from London. It did so and it moved as far as the north of England. But with the ending of that Government that policy ceased. A wise Government today would try and resurrect that policy and spread the industry still farther than its present location.
I have said that we are voting £244 million. There is a little fraction which has played a very important part in the economic life of Scotland. It is called "the eleven-eightieths". It has governed income and to some extent expenditure. If we were to allocate the present expenditure on the basis of that eleven-eightieths fraction about £33 million would be spent in Scotland on airframes, aero-engines, electronic and electrical equipment, instruments and flight simulators.
We are equipped in Scotland to provide airframes and also furniture and clothing. Employment in the latter two industries is now running down, but £11¼million are to be spent under these Estimates on items of that nature. We in Scotland are not receiving our fair share of that expenditure for which we help to create the income. The same applies to the electronics and other specialist industries for which £49 million are being provided.
In Scotland we produce 11 per cent. of the scientists who come from the universities of the United Kingdom. But we retain only 2 per cent. of them because of the lack of this type of work. We are voting for the sustenance of that work tonight and I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Air will keep in mind what I have said when he replies to the debate. Furthermore, I hope that after he has replied and has retired to his private office to think about how he will allocate this money he will do his best to wipe out the present inequality in its use and will see that Scotland receives a fair share of the money which it helped to provide.

6.7 p.m.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I hope that the Committee will excuse me if in a speech of five minutes I leave these large matters of aircraft and airframe manufacture and the location of industry in order to raise a small matter

but one of almost as much importance to the British public. I was interested to see that under Subhead F the Air Ministry is proposing to increase expenditure on meteorological equipment this year from £600,000 to over £1 million. I hope that that increased expenditure may portend for us some advance in long-range forecasting with which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will well know I have been burdening the Ministry for some time in Question and Answer.
I think we would all agree that the 30-day forecasts of the United States in recent months have been highly successful and that a longer-range forecast than the 48-hour forecast we now have would be of considerable help to farmers, to householders who have to stock coal for the winter, to the railway authorities so that they might, know how much extra coal they should allocate to the depots, to road transport interests and to private motorists. If it were possible by the use of this additional machinery to have a 30-day forecast in this country which would have some chance of being successful I am sure that it would be very much appreciated.
The American meteorological office has spent a great deal of money on this work. Recently it bought a computer costing £5 million into which it has fed weather patterns for the last 60 years. The existing weather pattern is fed into the computer which selects the most likely of the weather patterns of the previous 60 years to correspond, to that pattern, thereby giving forecasts for 30 days which, as I have said, have been remarkably successful.
I know how difficult these things are in this country. At one time we regard ourselves as a storm-tossed island off the coast of Europe, and at another time as part of the land mass of Europe which is washed by the Atlantic; so it is not easy to make long-term weather forecasts for this island. But it would be of considerable practical help to many people in this country if we could have these long-term forecasts and if we could borrow from the Americans some of their knowledge. The Americans recently—I think it was on Saturday—forecast that the next thirty days will be warmer and moister than usual for our spring, and it will be interesting to see if this forecast is borne out.
I raise this matter now because I hope the Under-Secretary will have an opportunity of saying to what extent we can imitate the Americans and borrow their knowledge in making these 30-day forecasts.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. Ridsdale: We have covered very widely many aspects of the aircraft industry under Vote 7. The Estimates, in Vote 7, provide for airframes, for example the Lightning Mark III, and for aero-engines such as, for example, the Tyne to be supplied to the Royal Air Force during 1963–64. However, for security reasons the Estimates cannot be broken down to give the provisions for individual items.

Mr. Mulley: May I follow that point? In the Memorandum we have the lists of aircraft which are intended to be coming along; we have all sorts of lists of aircraft which are coming along in the next 10 years. Surely, it is not a security matter to say that in the present year this figure represents seven Lightnings or three Belfasts, or whatever the aircraft may be? The Committee is being treated like children.

Mr. Ridsdale: In reply to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) I can say that deliveries of certain types of aircraft, including the Comet IVs and Victor Ifs, will have been completed in 1962–63, and deliveries of the Argosy and jet Provost will have been completed before the end of 1963–64. We are expecting deliveries of the Lightning F.3 and the Wessex HC2 as well, and we are also dealing with the Tyne engine.
In this debate on Vote 7 we have strayed very widely. I could have suggested that some of the points that have been made have been out of order—

Mr. Wigg: On a point of order. This is a departure from precedent for the Committee to be told by a Government spokesman that the debate has been out of order. Is it not the gravest reflection upon the Chair?

Mr. Ridsdale: rose—

Mr. Wigg: On a point of order, Sir Norman. Can we not have your Ruling on whether it is competent for an hon. Member to say that the debate has been out of order?

The Temporary Chairman: I did not interpret what the Minister said as being a severe reflection upon the Chair. I think it was intended to be taken lightheartedly.

Mr. Ridsdale: I was endeavouring to reply to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) who referred to Scotland. We bear in mind as far as we can the interests of Scotland in the difficulties that she is going through at present.

Mr. Rankin: I did not mention Scotland's difficulties. I dealt with the unfair treatment which she is not only getting this year and next year but which she suffered last year. I should like the hon. Gentleman to deal with this matter at length and to help us.

Mr. Ridsdale: I have noted what the hon. Gentleman said. Further than this I cannot go at the moment.
The hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) dealt with the question of a supersonic aircraft. It is not for me to deal with the hon. Gentleman's reflections on supersonic transport aircraft. There is no provision for any such aircraft in the Vote which we are discussing. The Anglo-French development project is, indeed, a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation. The hon. Member for Dudley also raised a question—

Mr. Wigg: On a point of order. This brings our procedure almost to the verge of a farce. The two aircraft concerned are the head and tail of the same penny. They use the same engine. The TSR engine has reheat, but they are the same engine. The Government have chosen both. Yet the hon. Gentleman says that he will not reply to the question and deal with the supersonic aircraft. Although it is not strictly borne on this Vote, it is implicit in Government policy that the two things go forward together. The hon. Gentleman is turning the proceedings almost into a joke. We may as well provide a blank cheque.

The Temporary Chairman: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is raising this question of aircraft with me. The Estimates are in a new form; they are not very informative, and I am not sure what type of aircraft are referred to in these Estimates.

Mr. Wigg: I was addressing the Chair and, through the Chair, the Under-Secretary of State.

Mr. Ridsdale: I had noted what the hon. Gentleman said. The hon. Member mentioned the need for an early decision on the engine for the OR351. I fully agree with him, and a decision will be made on the basis of the project study of the aircraft which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation announced on 5th March this year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) voiced some criticism of the aircraft firm which has been awarded the project study of the OR351. He said in particular that that firm had had no experience of producing vertical take-off and landing aircraft. The firm concerned, Armstrong Whitworth, is a member of the Hawker Siddeley group. The Hawker company is a pioneer in the whole concept of V.T.O.L. with its successful P1127 aircraft.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: What I said was that the firm of Gloster Whitworth had no experience of V.T.O.L. aircraft, which is true. I also said that the firm associated with Gloster-Whitworth had experience of exactly the oposite system to the one which has been adopted in this aircraft, which is also true.

Mr. Ridsdale: I am sure that the expertise which is available throughout the group will be fully at the disposal of Armstrong Whitworth.
We have also had a debate, on Vote 7, on Skybolt. The hon. Member for Dudley talked about truth. He chided me with the word "truth" which appears to have many sides. The hon. Member has accused the former Secretary of State of a misleading statement in paragraph 21 of last year's Air Estimates Memorandum, which said that the development of Skybolt in the United States was making good progress. I believe that statement to have been perfectly true at the time that it was made in February, 1962. It was certainly based on the fullest reports from the United States, including information from the Defence Department. The statement by Mr. McNamara which the hon. Member quoted was made practically a year later, when further evidence of live launchings of the missile and revised cost estimates had persuaded

Mr. McNamara to change his mind. It is really rather naïve of the hon. Member to speak as if the two statements were made at exactly the same time.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton for the way in which he answered some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Dudley about the planes that we have not been able to export. The hon. Gentleman spoke, too, about aircraft policy in general, but let me deal with the point he made very forcibly under Vote 7 about the TSR2 and, in general, about the British aircraft industry. He suggested that the TSR2 would never reach the production stage. Like my right hon. Friend last Thursday, I am prepared to take issue with him on that. Good progress is being made in the development of the TSR2, and I confidently expect that it will make its first flight early next year—

Mr. Shinwell: But suppose it does not happen—where will we be then?

Mr. Ridsdale: I am not nearly as pessimistic as the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite are. After listening to the debate on the Air Estimates, and to this debate today, my impression is that hon. Members opposite are a very pessimistic lot indeed.
The hon. Member for Dudley has praised Mr. McNamara, and has run down our own aircraft industry. I am sure that he does not wish to disparage everything that is British and praise everything that is American, but this is what he has done this afternoon. He was concerned about cancellations in our aircraft industry, but what about the American cancellations—Skybolt, the B70s and the bombers? These cancellations are bound to be part of any modern aircraft industry today. By all means let us fight our Parliamentary battles, but do not let us run down England continually, and British industry. I have no doubt that we have on order the finest conventional planes of any country. Their quality is second to none. Hon. Gentlemen opposite do not do the aircraft industry and the Royal Air Force any service by running down planes that we know to be of first-class quality, and which will come into service shortly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) asked me about


the Belfast. The strategic Belfast modified to give some tactical capability could have been in service a year or two earlier, but it could not have taken the full range of tactical tasks required for the Royal Air Force. His remarks about scientists, and so on rather strayed outside Vote 7 but he also suggested that the Nassau decisions might have influenced the decision in favour of the AW681 as against the tactical version of the Belfast which, he suggested, would be cheaper.
I can assure him that Nassau had nothing to do with it at all, and that there is no reason to suppose that the Short aircraft would offer any significant cost advantage. The first step in the programme, a project study contract, has only just been taken, as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation informed the House on 5th March—

Mr. McMaster: I believe that, aircraft for aircraft, the AW681 and the Belfast would cost the same, but one has to take into account the fact that the Belfast is a very much bigger aircraft, and would carry a very much larger load than would the AW681.

Mr. Ridsdale: That has been considered but, on the whole, the advantages of the 681 were considered greater for the tasks for which it would be needed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) asked about meteorological equipment. The main reason for the increase in Subhead F. 4 is that we have made provision for payment for a new computer for the Meteorological Office. The Meteorological Office requires a faster computer than the existing one for regular calculation of forecasts two or three days ahead by numerical methods. Provision is also made for additional weather radar to help local forecasting at weather centres.
My hon. Friend referred to a subject about which he has spoken before in the House—long-range weather forecasting. The Meteorological Office has for some years been making experimental forecasts for a month ahead, but the results so far achieved have been little better than would have been expected by chance. The forecasts have not been published, because they are not considered to be sufficiently reliable. Far-reaching

deductions, for example, about holiday weather might be made from them. The forecasts have been issued to a limited number of persons at universities, agricultural institutes and similar bodies for evaluation. A comprehensive assessment of the views of these people is being made and should be completed in the near future.
The United States Weather Bureau also makes long-range forecasts which are called 30-day outlooks. These are published, and state what the temperature and rainfall are expected to be for the following month. The figures show some modest success, but the Bureau warns users that too much reliance must not be put upon these forecasts. Experience over a number of years has not yet shown that these outlooks for the Northern hemisphere can be relied on as a guide for the weather in this country, which lies in an area of very variable weather. I do not think that the Bureau would claim that its long-range forecasts are consistently better than those of the Meteorological Office. The methods of long-range forecasting now being studied by the Meteorological Office do not require elaborate computing machinery, but the Office uses an electronic computer for the examination of all relevant data. I understand that the Weather Bureau uses an electronic computer in the preparation of the 30-day forecast to calculate the trend of the weather over the first few days, but this does not appear to have any significant effect on the success of the forecast for the period as a whole.
I can assure my hon. Friend that the Meteorological Office is not complacent about this problem, that research effort in this field has been increased, and research conducted in several ways, including statistical studies, studies of past weather developments and fundamental studies of the general circulation of the atmosphere. But the problem is complicated, and progress will be slow.
It is suggested that a more advanced computer would enable the M.O. to make more accurate long-range forecasts. A more advanced computer would not mean earlier or more accurate long-range forecasts, because the need is for a better understanding of the dynamics of large-scale weather processes rather than for advanced computing equipment. However, we are considering buying a faster


machine, and we are also considering a regular calculation of forecasts two or three days ahead by numerical methods. No doubt, this computer, if provided, would be used to help in handling data used in long-range forecasting, but the existing machine is adequate for the long-range forecasting requirements as at present foreseen.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: May we have an assurance that we are co-operating with the Americans and are trying to learn from them on these 30-day forecasts?

Mr. Ridsdale: I gladly give that assurance. We are co-operating with the Americans and are doing all we can to learn more about these forecasts.

Mr. Eric Lubbock: The Under-Secretary of State will, I hope. amplify one point. He said that security prevented him from giving answers to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) on the numbers of aircraft involved. I do not consider that a valid answer, because, as the hon. Member for Dudley showed, the Americans have very much more detailed information presented to them on procurement over the coming year and also on the weapons and aircraft in service.
For instance, when the B52 ceased production, it was stated that the last aircraft of the line was the 744th. Therefore, anyone who wanted to could judge how many of these aircraft were in service with the Strategic Air Command. We do not know how many V-bombers are in service, nor how many are coming into service in the forthcoming year. The hon. Gentleman should give us a more detailed explanation of the reasons why we cannot have the figures than merely rely on the one word "security".

Mr. McMaster: Is my hon. Friend able to say anything about the important talks held at Chequers this weekend in so far as they affect these Estimates, particularly the Vote covering equipment?

Mr. Ridsdale: That is really a matter for the Minister of Aviation.

6.32 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: The Under-Secretary of State suggested that I was naive for failing to point out that the statements about Skybolt made by the Government and those made by Mr. McNamara were made

at an interval of some months. Either there is something wrong with me or there is something wrong with him. I carefully pointed out, both in my speech in the first instance and in response to an intervention, that the statement in the Secretary of State's Memorandum in February last year was quite specific. It said that the development of Skybolt in the United States was making good progress.
That statement was made on the authority of the Government on the basis, they claimed, of specific information. It was accepted by the House and hon. Members opposite argued on the basis of that statement both in this Chamber and in the country. But from Mr. McNamara's statement on 30th January last, it is clear that already all was not well with Skybolt in February last year, when the Government's Memorandum was issued. Therefore, if the Government did not know then, their ignorance is almost as grave a charge against them as is the charge that the news about Skybolt came rather late.
They should have known these facts on a matter which was so vital to the country. Skybolt was not an isolated, chancy weapon. This was the weapon to which the Government had tied the prestige and the defence policy of this country following the failure of Blue Streak. I turn the charge of naïveté gently back on the hon. Member who lauched it. He spoke like the senior foreman at a prep. school. The hon. Gentleman was all right when he was reading his brief. He read it well. But when he moved away from his brief, his speech was just horrible.
Then the hon. Gentleman went on to this sorry business of "running down England". England does not belong to the Tory Party. Those who show the greatest patriotism are those who tell the truth about their own country and want to see it better. I want to see a strong R.A.F. and a strong aircraft industry in this country. But I am not prepared to tell lies about them for political purposes. That is the difference between the hon. Gentleman and me.
If the hon. Gentleman is competent to do his job, he must know that the statements I have made about these aircraft are objective. They will stand up to examination. But if I am wrong, then let him deploy the facts to the House of


Commons in the same way as Mr. McNamara told the House of Representatives. Let the hon. Gentleman give us and the country the facts, so that if greater demands have to be made on the people both sides of this Committee will be able to join in deploying those demands so that the people will face them. But, just as I would not be a party to saying that Blue Streak was the most powerful weapon in the world, I will not now be a party to saying that we are to have streamlined atomic forces.
The Conservative Central Office recently issued a pamphlet on the nuclear deterrent and again the claim was made that Blue Streak is British. It is nothing of the kind. The engine is the same engine as that which powers the Atlas, and it is produced by Rolls-Royce under licence. It is British only because it suits the Secretary of State to claim that it is.
But that is not the worst. There is another untruth we are told when it suits the Government. First, Blue Streak went west as a missile, and then we had Skybolt. We were told that we were being unpatriotic and were running down the R.A.F. and, indeed, deriding British strength when we said that Sky-bolt would not work. Yet when it did fail, we were told by the Government that they have never said it would succeed. We get fairy tales from the Government.
Now the hon. Gentleman tries to accuse me of being unpatriotic because I say that the TSR2 does not work. I do not know when the Government will find it convenient to cancel this aircraft. But it will not fall with this Government to cancel the TSR2 because in a few short months—I wish that it were only a few short weeks or a few short days—they will not be on those benches any more.

Mr. Shinwell: Will we cancel it?

Mr. Wigg: One of the first things that the Labour Government will do is to undertake the same sort of reappraisal of defence policy that was undertaken by President Kennedy when he took office. We will not simply tell the world that we are going to produce the TSR2 to fly at Mach 2 when we have never yet built an aircraft that could fly at

Mach 1. According to the Government, we are to produce an aircraft of 90,000 lb.—twice the weight of a similar American aircraft, the F111.
When one looks at the list of the things that the Government are doing, or have done, then it is a subject not for condemnation but more for laughter. Yet in this juvenile way we are told, "You are running down England". That is the sort of prep. school attitude we get from the Government. Let them come to the House of Commons and tell us the truth. Let them face both Tory back benchers and my right hon. and hon. Friends with the realities of the situation, because that is the only possible way in which we shall be able to begin to tackle this problem and ultimately find a solution.

Mr. Ridsdale: We have on order the finest aircraft in the world, and it does not do any service to the R.A.F. for the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) to disparage those planes and speak about the TSR2 in the way that he has done. I have every confidence that it is as good as any plane that the Americans have—and better.

6.39 p.m.

Mr. Eden: I found listening to the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) a very depressing experience indeed, because if one took all he said as a true statement of the facts one would have every justification for feeling extremely gloomy not only about the state of the R.A.F. but about the state of the British aircraft industry as a whole.
Quite frankly, the Secretary of State's Memorandum, which accompanied the Air Estimates, in so far as it refers to these facts, tells exactly the opposite picture. If we consider the aircraft which have been produced already and those that are being manufactured, the picture is totally different from that which the hon. Gentleman would have us believe to be the case.
I agree with my hon. Friend when he takes the hon. Gentleman to task for painting such a gloomy picture. I accept that it is the responsibility not only of hon. Members opposite, but also, in an instance of this kind, of hon. Members on this side to be critical and to ensure that we have value for the money which we are being called upon to vote; but I do not think that we carry out those


responsibilities properly—if the hon. Gentleman will forgive my saying so; I am not trying to be as pompous as he was earlier with some of my hon. Friends —by running down the prestige of the R.A.F, and the products of the aircraft industry. If he does not see the distinction between those two things, it is time he started to learn.
The hon. Gentleman is a reasonably good critic, but a very bad guide as to the state of the efficiency of the Royal Air Force and I am glad that my hon. Friend interrupted him in an attempt to try to put the record straight. It is inevitable that errors will be made with regard to individual weapons systems and aircraft. This has always been the case throughout our history, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not deny that it is proper to take a decision now and again and that there must be an element of risk, including the risk of cancellation of individual projects, in this great, developing story. Technological development is unfolding at such a rapid pace that progress overtakes the original decisions in many instances.
It is important that this point should be stressed, for, to my mind, there is a much greater risk in standing still and always being certain that we are absolutely right before moving than there is in deciding to go ahead with a project. In taking a decision and going ahead with a project there is less risk of being wrong than there is in sonic of the admonitions of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Cyril Bence: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that, in such a highly complicated and technical matter as this, by the time we make a technological advance, whether in missiles or craft, it is out of date? Therefore, my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is quite right. It is not fair to bring into the context of the R.A.F. or into the defence of the. country something which is expected to be all right, but which may not be all right or which may be out of date when it is achieved.

Mr. Eden: That is so, but there is nothing wrong in assessing the value of a product or project as fairly and accurately as we can knowing it to be the best available or foreseen and to go ahead and order it and say, "This is what the R.A.F. should have". Of course, the R.A.F.

should have the best. My hon. Friends and I believe that the equipment now being chosen for the R.A.F., particularly the aircraft which it is getting, is the finest available and projected.

Mr. Wigg: This is where we do not agree. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to face up to the issue, let him look at OR351 and tell us how many times it has been altered since it was first written, and the pressures which he and his hon. Friends have exerted on the Minister to get any sort of decision and when we shall have a decision about the engine. Obviously, the longer that this is left the less chance there is of a viable aircraft being produced which can be sold abroad.

Mr. Eden: Before I answer the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), I should point out that I owe the Committee an apology because I was taken away from the Committee in the middle of a debate, and I must try to curtail my remarks because I recognise that we are coming to the conclusion of the debate on this Vote.
There are two reasons in particular why it is difficult to provide the Committee with an accurate estimate under this Vote. The first concerns the system under which the bills are paid, the bulk settlement arrangements. To some extent, the sums of money paid out in any one financial year are really dependent on the degree of industrial activity in the industry as a whole. I think that the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) will agree that, if there is an opportunity for stepping up these processes due to industrial inactivity in other spheres, a greater sum will come forward into the current year's Vote than would have been estimated for at the beginning of the year.
The second difficulty, namely, the question of changing requirements, has been touched on by the hon. Member for Dudley. It is well known that the original specification or the original operational requirement stated by the Service may be amended and changed as the construction work or design work proceeds.
I have one major question which I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I do not ask him necessarily to comment on it at this stage. To what extent are allowances


made in estimating for both these considerations? To what extent is there a special Air Ministry contingencies fund set aside for these eventualities? If there is such a fund, does it feature in this Vote? Can my hon. Friend say to what extent improvements are being made in estimating for this sort of project.? This brings in the whole question of the relationship between the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Aviation, which is the main supply Ministry for the Royal Air Force.
This brings me to another point. In view of the great technological changes which we are currently experiencing, may we be assured that the decision-making procedure is being streamlined and speeded up? In so far as I have been in touch with these matters over the past few years, it seems to me that we fall down by failing to follow up any new technological development with a clear specification or clear order. This is of extreme significance today in competition in the world's markets for the sort of products which the British aviation industry can produce.
One point which probably has been commented on—if so, I apologise for mentioning it again—is the significant juxtaposition of the two figures for airframes and for electronic and electrical equipment. The figure for airframes has fallen in its total over last year by about the same amount that the figure for electrical equipment has increased. I welcome this trend. It is a step in the right direction, but surely it draws attention to the fact that the real cost of producing an aircraft lies in the electronic and electrical equipment in air instruments and flight simulators. This is where great technological advances are being made.
I am interested to note the increase in the sum for electrical equipment, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and the Secretary of State for Air and the Minister of Aviation will pay very special regard to the urgent need of giving the maximum possible support to developments in electronics and technology. I will not go further into that matter, but this is a most important aspect in ensuring that the R.A.F. is equipped with the most up-to-date equipment that we can supply. If my hon.

Friend can comment on that aspect, I shall be interested to hear what he says.

Mr. Mulley: I am sorry that the Under-Secretary did not pay the Committee the usual courtesy of allowing hon. Members to make their points before seeking to reply, thus shortening down the debate. That is no substitute for having an explanation of the Vote. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not play that kind of Parliamentary trick again, because it never pays.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) upon at least extracting from the Government an explanation of how £1 million of the £244 million is to be spent. I cannot congratulate the hon. Member on his Parliamentary interest in the weather, because since his interest began, we have had the worst summer in my recollection and, I believe, the worst winter since records have been kept. I do not know whether the coincidence of the weather and the hon. Member's recent interest in it in the House of Commons are in any way connected.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: It is not as bad as the "Shinwell freeze".

Mr. Mulley: Apart from that, we have had an extremely unsatisfactory reply from the Government. It may well be that it is difficult in the course of debate to give detailed information about why and how the money is being spent, but, certainly, there has been no attempt to supplement the understandably meagre figures which are printed in the Estimates.
One hon. Member after another has complained, and rightly, of the lack of information, not only on this Vote, but over the whole range of Government defence policy. It is nonsense to suggest that security reasons prevent much of the information being made available. It is always a matter of security when it does not suit the Government to give information and yet, when it suits them to make a statement, it is perfectly all right to do so. For example, a couple of weeks before the Estimates were published, the Minister of Aviation told an hon. Member that it was against the public interest to say what would be the weapons for the TSR2; but because it would make the headlines and help to fill in the Defence White Paper, information was published about the wonder bomb and


all the rest, which could equally have been given as an Answer to a Parliamentary Question two or three weeks before. The Government are simply not giving the House or, through the House, the people an explanation of why this money is required.
It will not do for anyone on the Government Front Bench to thump the Table and say, "We are British. Anyone who criticises the provision of equipment for the Services is anti-British" and to suggest that we on this side, in doing what we deem to be our Parliamentary duty, are somehow getting at the Royal Air Force. That is the last refuge of an incompetent Minister. The Minister of Aviation, who was Secretary of State last year, should be the last person to try that technique. I was accused of getting at the Royal Air Force and of being anti-British because I ventured to cast doubts about whether Skybolt would come along. Now, the Government themselves have cancelled it. Did they do it simply to get at the Royal Air Force, or because they wanted to be anti-British? All this is nonsense and I hope that it will never be put forward again.
One of the reasons why we are criticising the Government is that we do not think that the Royal Air Force has been given enough of the weapons and aircraft that it needs for the country's defence. We have made the point over and over again that we do not have sufficient transport aircraft. There is not one strategic freighter in the Air Force. Any airman would say that the important thing is not the number of planes written on pieces of paper in Government archives or in Memoranda accompanying the Estimates. The important thing from an operational viewpoint is the number of planes in squadron service. That is why it is not a substitute to talk about aircraft which will come in the future and then, when questions are asked about them, to say that they are not included in the Vote because none of the expenditure will be made on any of these aircraft next year.
On the other hand, I sympathise with the Under-Secretary and the Air Ministry generally. I do not think that they have anything to do with the ordering of aircraft these days. It does not seem that they are really brought into the picture. To a large extent, they

have aircraft foisted upon them. I do not think that they have much say in how much or what kind of expenditure is incurred.
The complicated machinery with the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry of Defence and, of course, the Treasury taking a hand at every point must not only lead to an increase in cost, but it is prodigal of delay. If one point has to be made about the procurement of military aircraft, it is the delay. It is not that we lack technical and design knowledge in the industry. Ours could have become the foremost aircraft industry in the world. The only drawback is that because of procrastination by Governments on both the civil and military sides, a number of machines that would have been first in their field have been held up and when they actually fly, they are already overtaken by technological progress and events.
A real criticism of the Government—it has nothing to do with the industry or the Air Force—is the way that they have played around with V.T.O.L., in which we could easily have led the world. They made a grave mistake in backing only the Hawker Siddeley V.T.O.L., which will be useful only for the smaller aircraft. Already, in their OR351, they have to go outside the Hawker system to provide V.T.O.L. They now have to back the Short and the Rolls-Royce scheme, which they refused to back before. The result is that the Mirage is getting it and, through France, America will have it, and because they do things much more speedily than us, they will probably get these planes flying before we get a British V.T.O.L. version. It will be a tremendous tragedy if, Britain having invented the system, our aircraft industry and the country will be denied the benefit of it.
On another occasion, we shall have to press much further the whole question of the procurement of military aircraft and how it fits into the general aircraft policy of the Government. Perhaps we can find out then, as my hon. Friends have not succeeded in finding out from the Government today, what happened at the celebrated Chequers weekend. I could not believe my eyes when I read in one of the reports that somebody had said that the aircraft industry was happy, that it had all the work it wanted until the


1970s, and that there were no problems. I thought that somehow my hon. Friends speaking in the House of Commons on the Air Estimates had given a rather different picture of the problem from the viewpoint of their constituencies. I am sure that there are enormous problems.
I welcome the fact that the Ministry and the industry are getting together to try to develop long-term planning, but, certainly, this is a subject to which we shall have to return.

6.58 p.m.

Mr. Cyril Bence (Dunbartonshire, East): I enter this debate because I strongly resent the inference drawn by the Under-Secretary of State from the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and from other remarks which have been made from time to time by hon. Members on this side. Any engineer knows that the development of an aircraft is a costly business. Let us tell the public at large that what we are paying for in the main throughout the aircraft industry is the development of a project. the creation of a prototype and the putting of a single aircraft into the air in the hope that we can achieve a certain speed—Mach. 2, or whatever it is called—and that it will suit our needs.
We are spending a great deal of money in trying to do that, but do not let us, at the same time, create the impression in the country that the £244 million which we are voting tonight for 1963–64 will give us the defensive or strike weapon that we hope it will give, because we cannot be certain. This is problematical all the time.
I spent two years as an aircraft engineer, from 1938 to 1940. We produced a prototype. It did what the Royal Air Force wanted. It flew and it was a good plane. Then it was mounted with weapons and it was a failure. It went into production and was a complete flop.
I am shocked at the way in which the Under-Secretary has attacked hon Members on this side. I agree entirely with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley that the impression which is given in the country is that we spend this money and we have the things in being, whereas anyone knows that we do not have them. It would be almost like telling one's insurance company that one's house was

protected with a foolproof burglar device when, in fact, one had sent a request to an engineering firm to devise a burglarproof device. Of course, one would not have that burglar-proof device; it would be in the course of development.
That is the position we are in with armaments, whether it concerns the Navy, the Army or the Air Force. All the time we are spending a lot more money chasing after perfection, faster speeds and greater manœuvrability of aircraft. These are the purposes for which the largest amount of this money is being spent. It has nothing to do with the efficiency of the Royal Air Force.
In 1938, 1939 and 1940, had it not been for the quality of British pilots and navigators, I do not think that the Battle of Britain would have been won. It was won by the quality of the men. The quality of the men was far superior to some of the aircraft which they were flying at that time. I admit that we had a winner with the Spitfire. When we criticise the industry, its organisation and the whole set-up, I hope that hon. Members opposite will not indulge in that very cheap, political form of attacking us on this side of the Committee as if we were always denigrating England or the Royal Air Force. We are not doing any such thing.
We are doing what is the duty of Parliament and of every hon. Member, and that is to examine these problems and go through these accounts. It is our duty to criticise, question, analyse and to try to find out. The taxpayers who are paying these enormous sums of money are entitled to know how the money is being spent. They expect us to probe. They are entitled to a service by us in probing how this money is spent and where it is spent. It is shocking to me that an adult Member of this House would indulge in such cheap political clap-trap.

Mr. Eden: The hon. Member is rather overstressing this point, but the fact remains that if people had set a lot of store by what the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) said in his speech it would have done a great deal of damage to the fortunes of one important section of the aircraft industry.

Mr. Bence: I am not quarrelling with the hon. Member. If I were criticising


my hon. Friend, I would perhaps criticise him on the point that he did not make it technologically more explicit from an engineer's point of view. He is an ex-Regular soldier and I happen to be an engineer. I see this from the technological and engineer's point of view, and because I do I cannot stand for that sort of cheap, political claptrap which is not an answer to the problems that we are trying to elucidate in this debate.

Mr. Eden: Rubbish.

Mr. Bence: It is not rubbish. The hon. Member has no right to sit there and say that it is rubbish.

Mr. Eden: The hon. Gentleman is talking absolute rubbish in saying that what my hon. Friend said was cheap, political claptrap. He was absolutely right to defend the Royal Air Force. The hon. Gentleman would have been the first to attack him for irresponsibility if the Under-Secretary had not defended the Service for which he is the Minister.

Mr. Bence: No one has attacked the Royal Air Force. I have not and neither did my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley. No one has made a disparaging remark about the Royal Air Force. The hon. Member is indulging in the same kind of thing as his hon. Friend. What we are criticising is the Government. We are criticising the Government for trying to create the impression that for this money we have certain things in being when they are not. They are in the stage of development. I am surprised at the hon. Member indulging in these sort of tactics; it really is a disgrace.

Mr. Lubbock: I am not surprised.

Mr. Bence: I sit on the Estimates Committee with the hon. Member and I have found him very objective in many respects, but I am surprised to find him indulging in that sort of thing. I want to follow him on another point which he made, and which I think is quite legitimate.
This is a very difficult problem. It is the problem of these contracts progressing more favourably, under given conditions, with regard to the supply of airframes and the different components for aircraft listed in this £84,350,000 Vote. I am interested in this. It is not the aircraft companies that make these products.

They assemble them. Many of these products are made by light engineering firms of all kinds. When we talk about the aircraft industry we are talking of factories that make bicycle parts as well as aircraft parts. All kinds of small light engineering plants, employing 500 to 2,000 men are spread about the Midlands and the South-East, and many of these are firms which manufacture for the aircraft assemblers and aircraft designers. I am not referring to the big engineering shops at Gloucester, Weybridge, or Filton and Bristol.
Most of the products that go into aircraft are made by hundreds of small engineering companies. Many of these small manufacturers manufacture a lot of other products besides aircraft products. It would help many of these companies if there were a Government policy of proper long-term planning of the placing of orders, components, air frames, engines and engine components and a reasonable distribution of minimum and maximum rate of delivery of all the various elements that go into aircraft for use and servicing. It would help a great deal if these light engineering firms perhaps on the North-East Coast, in Belfast, or on Merseyside could have a smooth running throughout the year of orders and contracts through the aircraft industry.
I know that this is a very difficult problem. It is a very difficult industry. Anyone who thinks that the designing and bringing in of a new aircraft, the developing and tooling up for production is an easy job has another think coming. It is very complicated and difficult. I ask the Under-Secretary of State not to indulge in the sort of thing he did, but to appreciate that what most of us here on this side of the Committee are concerned about is to see that the taxpayer gets the best value for money, and to see that the distribution in the process of manufacturing hardware that goes into aircraft is so spread around the country as to give the maximum benefit to all small manufacturers which could benefit by this work and, perhaps, in so doing give us a more even flow, perhaps at a cheaper cost, than we are getting at the moment.
The cost is very heavy. And I am sure that if the British taxpayer saw some of the organisation at present in being he would be bitterly disappointed. Let us hope that out of the meeting at


Chequers some of the taxpayers' fears about the chaos that there is in the industry will be removed.

7.9 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: When the Air Estimates were under discussion last week I made a suggestion that we should get in Dr. Beeching to investigate the whole question of the Royal Air Force, and after reading these two pages I am the more convinced that that was a proposal which should receive the support of nearly every Member of the Committee who has listened to the debate, because this a big bill for aircraft and stores, £244 million, and instead of two pages of information we are given two pages of mystery. When we try to probe the matter along comes the precious word "security". The result is, as one hon. Member has said, that we are really passing a blank cheque.
I was very glad to hear the criticism which was made of the Minister from the Opposition Front Bench. I hope that the roles will be reversed, and that when we discuss the Estimates next year all the information which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), who spoke from the Opposition Front Bench, has demanded today will be given next year. At least I hope that when the rôles are reversed and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park speaks from the Dispatch Box we shall get much more ample information than we have received today. Of course, if the hon. Member does not give more information when the rôles are reversed, having very carefully treasured the first part of his speech I shall insist that we do have more information.
The justification of these Estimates is that we have to spend an enormous amount of money on what is called the 'strike weapon". There are a good many basic fallacies underlying those two words. We had recently demonstrated what is regarded as the latest powerful aircraft, and a great deal of publicity was given to it. I was amazed to see it was described as Operation "Leningrad". I wonder what expert in international psychology struck upon that word and this idea that an operation can be carried out by this aircraft which will proceed to destroy Leningrad without

anything happening on this side. Surely nothing could be more helpful, if we were trying to justify the gigantic and too expensive aircraft bill on the other side of the Iron Curtain, in Russia, than the fact that in Britain we are carrying out an operation for the destruction of Leningrad.
Although we get periodically from the Minister enthusiastic descriptions of how soon it will take for the airmen to get into the aircraft and to get off to Leningrad, we never have the story carried to its logical conclusion—that if these aircraft go to Leningrad something will come over here. We have not had an answer supplied to the question asked by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence), what is likely to happen when the reprisals come? There is a strike, and there is a counter-strike, and the full picture is that of a country which is destroyed. So I say, when this bill for £244 million is brought to us here as a defence measure for this country, that that £244 million is a gigantic bill which is being asked for under false pretences. Then when we try to probe the matter we do not get very much information at all.
We have a gigantic aircraft industry. I noticed during the weekend that references were made to aircraft and air lobbying. We are beginning to talk more and more in terms of the defence policy of the United States of America. We have these powerful lobbies now, we are told, concentrated in the Air Ministry, which is trying its best from behind the scenes to sabotage the proposals to bring it under the central direction of the Ministry of Defence.
I see behind this enormous sum of money, from the point of view of defence, a complete futility; and from the point of view of economic expenditure of men and material and organisation and scientific brains, I see an enormous amount of deadweight in the British economy contained in this sum of £244 million.
I hold that this Committee is quite incapable of examining this large sum of money and all these various items. For example, lumped together are aircraft armament, ancillary equipment for guided missiles, ground defence weapons, etc., at £13,400,000, and then lumped together are ammunition, rockets, bombs, guided missiles, torpedoes, etc., at £30,100,000.


These things lumped together cost enormous sums. I remember when we discussed the Army Estimates we had a Report from a Committee which had been inquiring into Army expenditure, and an hon. Member who is a chartered accountant drew attention to that vast sum of money for B.A.O.R. which was passed under one receipt; but here we have these sums and very little information about exactly how we are to spend them, and when we press for information we get no really useful information at all.
I can quite understand the security argument, but this is an occasion for stressing the fact that these Estimates should be carefully examined by hon. Members of experience and knowledge before ever they come to the Chamber, and till we do that, we shall be left with the uncomfortable feeling that behind all this gigantic amount of money is a great deal of wasteful expenditure which could not satisfy a normal chartered accountant.
I know that we shall be told that in clue time the Public Accounts Committee and the Estimates Committee will be entitled to go over certain aspects of this expenditure. When they do that and they turn over these stones they sometimes find a great many undesirable things underneath them, but very little is done. Once hon. Members of those Committees have laboured assiduously, what becomes of their Reports? Are they taken seriously by the House? The House discusses some of what I would call the major scandals which are described in very moderate language, in the Reports of the Estimates Committee and the Public Accounts Committee, but I notice that very little is done about them, and that debates on those Reports are usually taken when 90 per cent. of hon. Members have departed for home.
I want this expenditure examined before we come to this heterogeneous mass of vagueness which is contained in this Vote 7. We are told there that £49,350,000 is to be spent on electronic and electrical equipment, instruments and flight simulators. This is a very profitable sphere for private capitalism.
One of the biggest firms connected with the supply of this kind of aircraft is so wealthy that it can attract former members of the Government. A Lord Chancellor

and an ex-Minister of Defence have gone into industry and many officers of the Royal Air Force have left the Air Ministry to join firms manufacturing electronic equipment. If the facts were examined as they should be, we would find in this country a scandal similar to the log-rolling, pressure and canvassing which have occurred in the United States of America.
I welcome the opportunity of saying that these accounts deserve much more serious examination by the House of Commons than they get. The time has come for the aircraft industry and the electronics industry to be nationalised, just as the Royal Air Force is a nationalised institution. If these industries could be made directly responsible to Parliament as public organisations, we should get rid of the suspicion that there is a gigantic amount of graft and a gigantic waste of money.

7.21 p.m.

Mr. Lubbock: I hesitate to speak again on this Vote, but I had hoped that the Under-Secretary would have replied to the one question which I posed to him in a very short intervention. I have become used to asking questions and being ignored, although Ministers sometimes remedy that by giving me promises afterwards. I ought to emphasise the point I made earlier so that the Under-Secretary will understand what it is I am asking.
I said that we should have an expansion of his statement that he could not tell us, for security reasons, how the expenditure on airframes and aero engines was divided. I mention that because Mr. McNamara and the American Administration generally give much more information than do our Government. The party opposite has recently published a booklet called, Entitled to Know. I have not read it because it deals with a subject which does not greatly interest me, but the title is a good idea. We are entitled to know at least as much as the Americans are told about this subject.
In the defence debate, the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) said:
For most of this decade the United States will have 700 B52 bombers and supersonic B58 bombers, many A.3 Js, which are supersonic carrier-based bombers, several hundred Atlas and Titan missiles, 950 Minutemen and 656 Polaris missiles.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 57.]


He could have been more precise about the numbers of Atlas and Titan missiles. I have seen figures given. All we are asking is that we should be given at least as much information as the Americans already have.
Let me give one example a little nearer home. In the Statement on Defence, nearly all the vessels in service with the Royal Navy are given by name. including H.M.S. "Blake" which may or may not be in service—one is not sure—and the divisions into categories are given in full. If that can be done for the Royal Navy, why cannot precisely the same thing be done for the Royal Air Force?
The security argument cannot hold water, because the number of the aircraft for our so-called independent nuclear deterrent is very small. It must be. It must be a small fraction of the number in the American Air Force. It will not be a very important factor, therefore, in the calculations of a potential enemy if this information is divulged to us. In any case, I should have thought that such a potential enemy would already have a very good idea of the figure through the activities of spies in the last few years.
Furthermore, as he would have a fairly good idea of the cost of an individual V-bomber, he would have to do only a simple division of the expenditure on airframes and aero engines to calculate the number of aircraft. When we are discussing an enormous sum of money like £244 million, it is ludicrous that the House of Commons should be asked to vote such a sum without having this information.

7.26 p.m.

Mr. Ridsdale: I assure the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) that I had no intention of curtailing the debate earlier. I knew that if he wished, he could follow me, but I think that he will agree that the Committee should have an opportunity, if it wishes, to give time to the Army and Navy Votes. I hope that he will understand that that was my reason for rising to reply when I did.
The reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden) is that there is no contingency fund in the Vote. One would not be

allowed. However, in framing the Estimates we take account of the rate of deliveries which, as happened last year, can be affected by the general level of industrial activity. The Estimates now under discussion have taken account of our experience last year and are as accurate as we can make them.
The hon. Member asked why expenditure on electrical and electronic and similar equipment under Subhead D had increased by about £9 million compared with last year. The increase is mainly due to increased expenditure on ground radars associated with new air traffic control and air defence systems, including those needed for Bloodhound 2, and also airborne radio and radar. Equipment of this sort is steadily becoming more complicated and expensive. We also expect greater deliveries of flight simulators, which are invaluable training aids. Further expenditure arises because of the high cost of instruments in modern aircraft.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park spoke about transport aircraft and said that we had no strategic freighter. Our strategic fleet is now composed of Comets and Britannias, the latter with a freight capability.

Mr. Mulley: Surely the hon. Gentleman is not seriously suggesting that the Comet, or even the Britannia, is a strategic freighter. Let us face the fact that we have no strategic freight capacity in terms of heavy equipment.

Mr. Wigg: Will the hon. Gentleman also take into account that if he admitted that we had no freighters, that would be terribly unpatriotic?

Mr. Ridsdale: I know that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) does not like to be attacked because he has attacked me, but I am quite prepared to attack when I am attacked.

Mr. Bence: We were attacking the Government, not the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Ridsdale: The Britannia has a freight capability. It is because we recognise the need to increase strategic transport capacity that we have ordered 10 Belfasts and 11 VC10s. I should not like to give the impression that we are standing still, until we acquire these large and expensive new aircraft. Last year, for example, Transport Command


flew nearly 100,000 hours, over half of which were performed by the strategic and medium-range aircraft such as the Comet, the Britannia, the Hastings, the Beverley, and the Argosy, and during the year there was a heavy operational commitment as well in such areas as Aden, Bahrein, Lagos, Barbados, British Guiana, and, this year, Brunei. Total passengers carried into and out of this country by Transport Command on scheduled services rose from 16,000 in 1961 to 25,000 in 1962, and comparable figures for freight were about 5 million lb. in 1961 and about 6½ million lb. in 1962.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park also mentioned the V.T.O.L. system. The P1154 which we have an order will be one of the finest aircraft in service in any force in the world.

Mr. Mulley: I did not say anything about the PI154 not being a good aircraft. This business of pushing it back just will not do. I said that the Government had either backed the wrong one, or not given support to the V.T.O.L. system they need for their own OR351. The hoi. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) "rubbed the Minister's nose in it" in an earlier intervention, The Government did not back the V.T.O.L. system which will give Transport Command a V.T.O.L. plane. I should like to see a transport plane as well as a fighter with the V.T.O.L. system.

Mr. Ridsdale: I hope that we shall move towards having that in the future, This is a thing for the future, because other air forces have not reached that stage at the moment.
I hope the hon. Member for Dudley will not think that I have been discourteous in attacking him, but to my mind he strongly attacked the TSR2 and other planes that we were bringing into the Royal Air Force. Because I stand up for these planes and think that they are the finest in the world, it does not mean that I am being naïve.

Mr. Wigg: We have reached the point when we can illustrate the differences between us. The hon. Gentleman keeps saying that they are the finest planes in the world. I beg leave to doubt it, and therefore I am in the category of being a traitor to my country. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the P1154, which

he said is the finest aircraft in the world. The kindest thing to do is to assume that the hon. Gentleman does not know what he is saying, because this plane is still in the design stage. How in the name of goodness can he call this aircraft the finest in the world when it is still a number of black marks on a piece of white paper?

Mr. Ridsdale: We have discussed this very fully this afternoon, and I am sure that when, in the fullness of time, this aircraft comes to be judged the hon. Member for Dudley will be proved to have been wrong, and I shall be proved to have been right.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £244,000,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of aircraft and stores, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964.

Vote 9. Miscellaneous Effective Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £510,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of miscellaneous effective services including certain grants in aid and a subscription to the World Meteorological Organisation, which will come in course of payment' during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964.

7.34 p.m.

Mr. Mulley: The hour is late, and I rise to make only two points. First, it is rather intriguing to see in the Air Estimates for the Royal Air Force an item of civil flying services which appears to have increased by 30 per cent. I wonder why the Air Force—I am sure there is a good reason for it—has to incur civil flying services, which, I presume, are distinct from any passenger travel on civil airlines.
My second point is about publicity and recruiting services. A reduction is contemplated in that part of this item which falls on this Vote. The reference in the Estimates to the Central Office of Information and the Stationery Office Votes suggests that it is contemplated spending nearly £400,000 on Press and poster advertising. I do not want to go into this subject in detail, but I hope, as was revealed in evidence before the Estimates Committee a few years ago, that where possible the Royal Air Force is


encouraging its personnel to carry out publicity, particularly at exhibitions, and so on, because the Estimates Committee at that time was impressed with the quality of the work that was being done at only a fraction of the cost of comparable work in the other Services which was put out to private contract.
I hope that in this poster and Press advertising campaign the Ministry is satisfied that it is getting value for this volume of expenditure. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will say a word about publicity and recruiting services for next year.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. Eden: I wonder whether my hon. Friend would say a word in further explanation of why the subscription of the World Meteorological Organisation has been increased by £4,000 this year? It is very important that we should always examine the validity of continuing any subscription to an international organisation. We tend to belong to many different organisations. We contribute fairly large sums towards them, and I sometimes wonder how closely we follow those up and make certain that we get value for money, because we cannot exercise any sort of control over the way in which these organisations are controlled and run, and we cannot ensure that they are doing their job as efficiently as we would like to have it done.
So far as I know, the World Meteorological Organisation plays an important part in the interchange of meteorological information across the world. I believe that I am right in saying that this is the major point of contact with the Iron Curtain countries, the Soviet Union, in particular, in matters of this kind. Perhaps my hon. Friend will have heard of the proposal which was put forward at the last meeting of the N.A.T.O. Parliamentarians' Conference in the latter part of last year that there should be set up a separate N.A.T.O. meteorological organisation.
I am the last person to suggest that there should be any duplication in this or any other sphere, but I wonder whether, in view of the remarks of my hon. Friend on an earlier Vote about this island being in a peculiar meteorological area, we would not get greater benefit from assisting in the creation of

a more localised meteorological centre than in taking part in this world organisation? I think that I have said enough to give notice to my hon. Friend of my general interest in this organisation, and if he could give us any further information on it I would be most grateful.

7.40 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I should like the Minister to give us some further information about the publicity efforts for the Royal Air Force dental campaign. I have here a pamphlet which is a sample of the kind of publicity conducted by the Air Force. It is called, "A portrait of a Royal Air Force dental officer" Having read the first page, I came to the conclusion that the Royal Air Force publicity department must be permeated by Communists.
On the front page there is a wonderful piece of propaganda for State enterprise. We are told about the sufferings of dentists under private enterprise methods and how wonderfully their lot could be improved if they enrolled under a State service in the Royal Air Force.
The writer of the pamphlet becomes absolutely lyrical about the Royal Air Force dental officer. On the first page he states:
The Royal Air Force dental surgeon is today a man to be envied. Unlike his civilian colleague he is the dentist with the time needed for each patient, with time to study and with time to specialise. He enjoys complete clinical freedom—his standards are never lowered. He has no intricate administrative paper work to spoil his evening after a long and harassing day filled with National Health patients, and he has no need to work overtime scaling and polishing teeth.
This is an absolute Utopia for the dentist:
His conditions of work are always comparable in cleanliness and perfection with those of a first-class private practice. He uses the very best and latest equipment,
Transport House has never published such a convincing picture as this:
He is not worried that he will fall ill one day and have to find and engage a locum in his absence. As well as these advantages, he enjoys at least six weeks' leave a year, with full pay, and knows that when he returns he will not have lost some of his patients, and therefore part of his salary.
The pamphlet goes on:
The R.A.F. dental surgeon will tell you that the sense of financial security which the Service gave him in his first job, when newly


qualified, enabled him to gain confidence—and the unharassed though busy working day helped him to gain the speed which he had not yet acquired on leaving hospital.
This is a powerful argument for handing over the whole dental service of the nation to the Royal Air Force. Here is a nationalised industry. Hon. Members opposite object to nationalisation on principle, but here we have a eulogy about how nationalisation works in relation to pulling out and mending the teeth of members of the Royal Air Force.
There is a lot in this pamphlet—I do not know what it cost—which is irrelevant to the question of filling and pulling out teeth. But at least we get four beautiful illustrations of what a splendid, wonderful and exhilarating experience it is to have one's teeth extracted in the Royal Air Force. I am not sure whether this is recruiting propaganda to attract people into the Air Force, or a recruiting campaign to persuade dissatisfied dentists to join a full-blown scheme of nationalisation.
Can the Minister tell the Committee something about this publicity campaign? Has it succeeded? Are dentists being attracted to the Royal Air Force and from what branches of the civilian service are they being recruited? I advise hon. Members to read this propaganda literature in order to realise that Communism goes on in the Royal Air Force in the most strange places and in the most curious ways.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Bence: I see that under Subhead C, "Fees and other payments for personal services," there is a charge of £355,000 in the Estimate for 1963–64 to include
… payments for medical and meteorological research at universities …
I should like an explanation, because cannot understand how medical and meteorological research at universities and colleges can be a charge on the Air Estimates.
Under Subhead D there is a statement which I have tried to track down in the Estimates, but I cannot fathom it. There, it states that "Welfare expenses"
Excludes welfare expediture on transport, etc. …

Mr. Eden: If the hon. Gentleman turns to page 48 of the Estimates, and looks at

Appendix VIII, he will see a number of answers to his questions.

Mr. Bence: It does not answer the first question: why should work at universities on meteorological and medical research be a charge on the Air Estimates? I cannot understand it. Are there people at the universities doing medical research which is appropriate only to the Air Ministry? Is it dental research? Are some Air Force dentists at the universities doing research and if so, does the Air Force pay for their establishment? Have they a post-graduate scholarship for which the Ministry pays? We should have a full explanation of what is the organisation which is apparently attached to the Air Ministry. I hope that the Under-Secretary can provide an appropriate answer.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Ridsdale: The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) referred to the civil flying services. Provision is made under Subhead K (2) mainly for services such as anti-aircraft target towing carried out by civil contractors. The increase this year arises because we plan to share a VCIO proving programme with B.O.A.C. The Corporation and the R.A.F. will jointly carry out a flying programme preparatory to the introduction into route service of the VC10. This will be to the financial benefit of both parties and will save some time.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park and my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden) asked about publicity on recruiting services. Most of the expenditure on Press advertising, pamphlets, and so on, comes from the Votes of the Central Office of Information. The small provision in the Air Votes is spent on recruiting stands at exhibitions, window displays at recruiting offices and classified advertising, mostly for civilian vacancies, and the production of the Royal Air Force newspaper.
Vote 9B has been reduced because recruiting has, in general, gone well this year, and because manpower economies and changes in deployment, mainly in the disbanding of the Thor squadrons, have reduced requirements. We aim to recruit fewer men next year in the adult ground trades. This is reflected in lower recruiting publicity expenditure. We shall


have fewer career information centres next year and they will spend less on classified advertising and window display material.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West also asked a question about the World Meteorological Organisation. International co-operation has been a prominent feature of the science of meteorology for almost a century and the World Meteorological Organisation, which has 120 member States and territories, is the latest of a number of assemblies through which co-operation has been discussed and arranged. It is a specialised agency of the United Nations, similar in nature to U.N.E.S.C.O., the International Civil Aviation Organisation, and the World Health Organisation. It has a small permanent secretariat in Geneva, but the greater part of its work is done through technical commissions and regional associations the members of which come from the national services and the universities and work on a voluntary basis.
Modern weather forecasting is dependent upon the speedy interchange of information about the weather between many countries, and the work of the national services could not proceed without a body of this kind which lays down standard practices and gives expert advice to the less developed services. The British contribution to the World Meteorological Organisation is £14,551 in 1962–63, and, as the Committee has noticed, will rise to £18,822 in 1963–64. This is mainly the result of the World Meteorological Organisation's efforts to raise the standard of meteorological observations and services in underdeveloped countries.
There is, however, no connection between the World Meteorological Centre, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West mentioned. The latter is as yet only a tentative proposal which has not been discussed at Government level. Nonetheless, I have not forgotten the promise I gave him in the debate the other day and I shall certainly let him know what emerges.
That answers the main questions, apart from the question asked by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) about the medical side of the

Estimates. That is for medical post-graduate scholarships.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £510,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of miscellaneous effective services including certain grants in aid and a subscription to the World Meteorological Organisation, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964.

VOTE 11. ADDITIONAL MARRIED QUARTERS

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of certain additional married quarters, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964.

Air Supplementary Estimate, 1962–63

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a further Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,600,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1963, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Air Services for the year.

Schedule



Sums not exceeding



Supply Grants
Appropriations in Aid



£
£


Vote




5. Movements
200,000
650,000


7. Aircraft and Stores
1,400,000



Total, Air (Supplementary), 1962–63 £
1,600,000
650,000

7.53 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: This is a very important Supplementary Estimate, as it contains an item for the cancellation of Skybolt. There is something about this which we should like to know. On the subject of Skybolt, the Conservative Party is a little touchy. Just as it has been explained to us in the course of today's debate that, if one does not say that any British aircraft, whether it exists or not, is the most wonderful aircraft in the world, one is in danger of being charged with high treason—that is the formula we had this afternoon—equally to mention Skybolt


one must sing "God Save the Queen ", "Rule Britannia" and "Down with the Americans" all at one and the same time.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: And "Lead kindly light".

Mr. Wigg: I am now in the rôle of leading kindly light, because in our previous Skybolt debates we have only ever known what the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence have cared to tell us. Now we have a little more. My good friend, although I have never met him, Mr. Robert McNamara, in his statement to the House of Representatives, tells us a little more about Skybolt. He says this:
In 1960, the United States entered into an agreement with the United Kingdom to make available, under certain conditions, Sky-bolt missiles if we proceeded with production.
Just in case the Under-Secretary thinks I am a little naive in not mentioning the date, this is Mr. Robert McNamara on 30th January, 1963, and I gave the Under-Secretary advance notice of this.
The first question I therefore want to ask is, what were those certain conditions? Mr. McNamara goes on to say this:
We undertook to bear the entire cost of the Skybolt development. The British undertook to bear the costs of adapting the missile to their bombers and their warheads. The entire agreement was contingent upon the successful development of the missile and its use by the United States.
We have never been told before that the agreement into which the Government entered with the United States was under certain conditions and was conditional upon two factors—first, the successful development of the missile, and, secondly, its use by the United States. We should like to hear from the Under-Secretary, whether the Government, through his mouth, accept what Mr. McNamara says. If they do, why were we not told this in the Bahamas White Paper? Why did not the Prime Minister tell the House of Commons this? We should like to hear any other comments the Under-Secretary cares to make.
Mr. McNamara goes on in this way:
In the event that we found it undesirable to complete the programme, the British would have the right to continue further development at their own expense.
The President, wishing to assist the United Kingdom in every possible way to adjust to our cancellation of Skybolt, explored with the

British Prime Minister at Nassau a number of possible alternatives.

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Robert Grimston): I think that I should intervene at this stage. It win not be in order during this debate to go into the merits of the agreement at Nassau or indeed into the merits of Skybolt. What we are concerned with, as the hon. Gentleman realises, is the cancellation charges, how they arise, how they are being used, and so on. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman may wish to give a little background to his case.

Mr. Wigg: I fully accept the letter and the spirit of everything you say, Sir Robert. I am complying to the very fullest extent with your Ruling. Clearly we cannot ascertain whether this £1,600,000 is right, unless we relate it to conditions the existence of which up to this moment we have never known. It may well be that it should not be £1,600,000. Perhaps it should be £1,500,000. Perhaps it should be only £50,000. Perhaps we are being mean and not paying enough. In fact we have had revealed through Mr. McNamara's statement to the House of Representatives a number of conditions which the Prime Minister in his concern for our feelings has never before revealed. I am just going through them one by one and asking the Under-Secretary to tell us what those conditions are so that we can see whether the bill is right.
Perhaps I may continue. I was making the point that the President of the United States had said that there were a number of possible alternatives which obviously affected the size of the bill. Mr. McNamara continues:
As one alternative, the President offered to continue the development of Skybolt as a joint enterprise with the United Kingdom with each country bearing equal shares of the future cost to complete development, after which the United Kingdom would be able to place a production order to meet its requirements. This offer went considerably beyond the original agreement, under which the United Kingdom would have had to stand the full cost of further development, but the British Prime Minister decided not to accept it in the light of the uncertainties involved in the product.
Another alternative suggested by the President was the use of the Hound Dog missile.…
Over the weekend there was an occasion on which the British Ambassador


to the United States, obviously at the expense of the British taxpayer, took in a personal friend of his family, a man who in fact in another capacity is the correspondent of the Daily Mail. He has revealed, in that courteous way which exists amongst the upper crust families in this country, what was said at a private meal. He has revealed that the President went up the wall when he heard that there was criticism among Tory Members of Parliament of his offer at Nassau.
I must say that I have considerable sympathy with the President. He entered into an agreement to help this lot out over the cancellation of Blue Streak. He laid down carefully defined conditions. The Tory Government, for their political purposes, ran it as hard as they could that Skybolt was to succeed and then, when it was perfectly clear that it was not facing up to the hopes which had been placed in it, they did to the President what they tried this afternoon to do to me. In other words, it means that anyone who does not say and do just exactly what suits the Conservative Party at any given moment is guilty of everything under the sun.
The truth is that far too many hopes were vested in Skybolt and that, clearly, they have not come off. Now the Government, instead of footing the bill and telling the country the truth, have gone on behaving in exactly the same way in the next round—about Polaris—as they did over Blue Streak and Skybolt. They hope it will come off. They are sure that their new hope is going to. It may or it may not, but the bill for it will be £400 million. It will be a colossal bill for Polaris and I think that the Civil Lord should pay attention to blondes and spies. That is much more up his street than a serious defence debate.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing): I gave the figure in my winding-up speech the other night and, although it was nearly midnight when I did so, I am sure that the hon. Member would not now wish to be £100 million out.

Mr. Wigg: If the Civil Lord said £300 million then I would add another £75 million for certain and the other £25 million for luck. I am reasonably certain that Polaris, when it comes out of

the wash, will be much more expensive than the Government say. They are engaged in giving a political figure.
But Skybolt is my business tonight, and it is certain from the statements made by Mr. McNamara that there was a much more detailed agreement, with more specific conditions, and that they were interpreted in the interests of this country because Mr. McNamara bent over backwards to recognise the special difficulties not only of this country but of the Conservative Administration. I urge the Government to allow the Minister to tell the Committee the full truth on this subject.
I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate he will remember the important question asked by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) about whether there was any "know-how" or terms left about which we have failed to negotiate to the fullest possible advantage. If we are passing £1,400,000—a small sum after the £254 million we passed with about 10 hon. Members present—important principles still remain. If the business of Skybolt is learned and applied—expensive lesson though it might have been—it might be worth while, not least of all for the Conservative Party, to remember that one cannot use weapons until they exist and that it is fatal, whether one is backing horses or weapons, to put one's money on a horse or a weapon when one must win. The trouble is that the moment one must win one will lose.

8.7 p.m.

Mr. Bence: There are some facts I would like concerning the £1,400,000 cancellation of Skybolt and I hope that we will not be given the usual sort of reply we get from the Government, or any remarks about our being patriotic or unpatriotic, because those remarks are unwarranted in an important debate such as this.
I am reminded of a story told by an old friend of mine—he is almost 90 now —who disliked the Tory Party intensely because of something told to him when he was a young man. In his earlier years he had been told, when he was in the West Country, that the Tories used assiduously to go round the churches and chapels saying that Mr. Gladstone was the son of the devil. "If you ever


saw him on the platform you would see the horns coming out of his head," they used to say, he told me; and the effect that had in the churches and chapels was surprising, simply because of that slur on Mr. Gladstone.
The Under-Secretary has been at it tonight, slurring my hon. Friends. I can assure him that just because we criticise we are not unpatriotic. We are dealing with the Douglas Corporation's Skybolt, which was a failure. We cancelled it. Or did the American Government cancel it? I do not know how much the Americans paid in compensation, but I do know for certain that we are paying £1,400,000. Are we paying that in pounds or dollars and to whom are we paying it? It was not our fault that Skybolt was a failure, so why should we compensate someone for it?
Are the Government not aware that this project has been discarded with the result that thousands of men in Scotland are being made redundant? They do not receive one penny in compensation, so I would like to know who will be getting the £1,400,000. Is it the Douglas Corporation, the American Government, or someone else? After all, Skybolt was an American project. manufactured and developed there. The Americans do not want it and I assume that they are paying compensation. We cannot afford to buy it so I suppose that we, too, are paying compensation. My hon. Friends and 1—and the unemployed in Scotland —are entitled to know. I hope that I am not being unpatriotic in asking these questions and that I will not be thought to be criticising the R.A.F. I am revealing the ineptitude and stupidity of the Government.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. Malley: My hon. Friends have rightly drawn attention to the amount of information we need before we can allow this Supplementary Estimate to pass. I should point out that my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) was a little inaccurate in suggesting that it was not our fault but that of the Americans. He must remember that, technically, Skybolt did not fail. It had to be stopped because it had reached such a stage of technical progress that if the American Government had not stopped it then they would not have been able to stop it at all.
While it is properly a matter for the Americans to decide whether or not to buy a weapon for their own Air Force, it is remiss of Her Majesty's Government to suggest that, somehow or other, it was someone other than our Government who decided not to give Skybolt to the Royal Air Force. It might have been a right decision but, judging from the past speeches of Ministers, one would have thought that we would have received a much fuller explanation as to why they changed their minds. It was a unilateral decision on the part of our Government to the effect that the R.A.F. could not have Skybolt, with all that means for Bomber Command, and so on.
We need to know something about the background and circumstances of how the cancellation charges came about for, after all, had it been someone else's decision to stop Skybolt, would those cancellation charges have arisen? Obviously, we had the option of going ahead with Skybolt, as my hon. Friend for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) pointed out, and this was set out in the Nassau Agreement. The United States Government, rather generously, undertook to pay half the further development costs for a weapon which they did not wish to buy. Before we can form a balanced view on this matter we should be told the exact costs involved.
There is obviously no security risk here, because we are not to have any Skybolts anyway. Can we be told, therefore, how many Skybolts the Government had contemplated buying? Were there to be 100, or 50? There is no security aspect about this, because we are not to have these missiles now. Could we not, therefore, be told what it was envisaged this weapon would have cost?
The cost touches very much on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley following an intervention the other day by the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) about "know-how". Had we wished, we could have brought the whole project to Britain, providing work for the aircraft industry. Had we wished, we could have completed the Skybolt missile ourselves. I understand that it would have required about 200 personnel from Douglas to come here, and that they would have been very willing and


anxious to come. It would have meant employment and "know-how" for our own industries. What would have been the cost—not that I advocate this course, and, in any case, it is now too late—to finish the 100 Skybolts if we had had them?
We must have that information and weigh it against the enormous bill—whether it be the £300 million mentioned by the Civil Lord, or the £400 million, as my hon. Friend says—for Polaris. If I were the Civil Lord I would not stick too hard to the £300 million, because if Polaris comes out right it will be the first thing that any of the three Services has ever produced for the estimated initial sum. Therefore, were I he I would not put the whole of my political reputation on £300 million when there is every precedent to show that one should add a nought rather than my hon. Friend's 25 per cent., to the initial figure for this kind of development scheme.
Before we pass this Supplementary Estimate we should be given a balance sheet, as it were, of the whole transaction, so that we can see the extent of the Government's folly in the way they have carried out this operation.

Mr. Ridsdale: I am concerned only with the cancellation charges under Vote 7. These charges arise on the Skybolt training equipment that we ordered from America in 1962 for delivery in 1963–64. In order to have trained personnel available to handle the missile when it came into service, it was essential for this equipment to be available in good time beforehand. The United States Air Force was placing similar orders at the same time, and there were production advantages from placing the two orders together. Since we have to reimburse the Ministry of Aviation for the cancellation charges in the financial year in which they fall due rather than wait for the year in which, but for the cancellation, delivery could have been expected, we had to make financial provision in 1962–63.
In answer to various questions from hon. Members opposite, the Air Ministry pays the Ministry of Aviation, and the Ministry of Aviation pays the Americans. This will be a dollar transaction, and the main payments will be to the United States contractors. The rest of the ques-

tions asked by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) are outside this Supplementary Estimate, but no doubt he will have an opportunity to ask them on another occasion.

Mr. Mulley: We now have to remind the Under-Secretary that he is not in the Chair as well as at the Dispatch Box. It is not for him to say what is or what is not in order. To see how a cancellation comes about one has to go a little behind things, as it were, and the hon. Gentleman has not even told us whether the Secretary of State for Air or the Air Ministry was even consulted in any of these operations. Is it a State secret, or can we be told whether a representative of the Air Ministry was present at Nassau, or even at the talks between Mr. McNamara and the Minister of Defence in London?
Perhaps the best way of describing the Air Ministry's operations in this matter was that described by one of the consultants of the Pentagon, when referring to Nassau and to another aspect. He said that he had so much to do with it that the first he knew of Nassau was three days later, when the New York edition of the New York Times hit Washington. Is it that the Secretary of State has no responsibility for the cancellation of a weapon that was to be the salvation of the Air Force? Is that what the hon. Gentleman means by saying that it is outside this Vote?
I wonder, too, whether we shall have other Votes coming along for adaptations of the planes. Have all the contractors been told about this? The Government took a little while to tell the contractors to stop fitting the Vulcans for Skybolt—are we to have another expense for the planes changed for Skybolt being changed back in order not to take Skybolt? We need to know much more before we finish with the Skybolt saga. Whether the hon. Gentleman chooses to tell us on this Vote, or whether we have to take other steps to get the information, we shall not let the Skybolt story rest until we really know what happened.

8.16 p.m.

Mr. Eden: It is a little unfair to press my hon. Friend on the lines of the questions asked by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley). As the hon. Gentleman well knows, these are


largely questions outside the strict limitations of this Vote. Admittedly, if looking for background information, one can go back for years and bring in all matters of high State policy, and goodness knows what else, but we are here dealing with aircraft and stores, and the cost arising from the cancellation of the Skybolt project.
As a Member who is being asked to vote this sum of money, I agree that we should seek information on it, but in any industrial project involving working on a particular contract—particularly where there is involved the development of a project that is not yet on the production line—if the project is cancelled, certain cancellation charges must inevitably arise. I should have thought it absolutely pertinent in questioning my hon. Friend on the details of this Supplementary Estimate to ask him the nature of the cancellation charges, but, with respect, I submit that it is going a little far afield to range over the whole past history—

The Temporary Chairman (Dr. Horace King): I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not questioning the capacity of the Chair to see the debate is continued in order. The hon. Gentleman can comment on the pertinence and the rightness of comments made. He must leave it to the Chair to decide what is in order.

Mr. Eden: I leave the matter entirely in your hands, Dr. King. I well understand that you will ensure that this debate is kept on the straight and narrow line. I was only seeking to reply to some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park, because, as far as I can understand, they bring in an enormously wide range of topics.

Mr. Mulley: Having failed to discharge the duties of the Chair, the hon. Gentleman should not take on the duties of the Under-Secretary, either.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. Wigg: The Under-Secretary is trying a new tack. Earlier, it appeared to be quite unpatriotic to criticise anything we thought wrong about an aircraft. The hon. Gentleman, for his part, is perfectly entitled to attack the alliance between this country and the United States and charge the United States with being unfair in relation to Skybolt, but when

we have in the Vote an item like this that causes hon. Members to ask a number of questions based on views expressed at the highest level in the United States, we get no reply.
We then have a violent attack made on the Chair—couched, of course, in very courteous language, but an attack—

The Temporary Chairman: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's kindness. The Chair is quite capable of defending itself.

Mr. Wigg: I know only too well the Chair's power to protect itself, but the hon. Gentleman on this occasion has indulged in a diversionary activity. I have the greatest sympathy with the Under-Secretary. We have exchanged hard words. He has said some wounding things about us and we shall go away and console ourselves as best we can. But basically the hon. Gentleman has been asked to make bricks without straw. He has not the least idea of what he is saying on any of these subjects. He reads his brief with great skill and I think that a Shakespearean actor has been lost in him. He has read his brief better than I could ever have read it, but he has wandered a little when his brief has run out. However, the hon. Gentleman has done his best.
This is a Supplementary Estimate for aircraft and stores and an Explanatory Note states that this sum of £1,400,000 is in respect of
Cancellation charges falling due as a result of the termination of the Skybolt project.
This was what brought my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) into the debate, and this is what has kept me here. I thought that this was publication for the first time of the amount to be paid over to the Americans as a result of this cancellation, and this has turned out to be the case. One would have thought that if this was so and we were winding up the whole affair there would have been a few gracious words thanking the Americans—or would that have caused a major split in the party opposite?

The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Member has now got a little wide of the Supplementary Estimate which we are discussing.

Mr. Wigg: With great respect, Dr. King—and I shall have to be careful or I shall find myself in conflict with the Chair—when the Supplementary Estimate is for "Aircraft and Stores" I should have thought that if we were to pass the Vote I should not be out of order in saying that, in addition to approving the money, we should say to the Americans, "We thank you very much". A little courtesy would not have been out of place in view of the hard words which have been said by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden). Nobody has been more violent than he in sowing the seeds of dissention between this country and America.
The Under-Secretary of State has not the foggiest nation what all this is about. He had a note from his Department to say Sign this Supplementary Estimate" and he signed it. He has no idea what he has signed. He could not say anything at the Dispatch Box until his brief came over to him, and his Parliamentary Private Secretary had to run the last 20 yards with the brief.
As I have said, the hon. Gentleman has not the foggiest notion what this is about but I forgive him, and I certainly forgive the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West. He has nobly realised that his party is on a sticky wicket. He has done what I did several times many years ago, and it will not be long before I have to do it again. When our Front Bench was in difficulty I staged a diversionary act. It is the oldest trick in the world. The hon. Member's act was needed, because the Under-Secretary was on the stickiest wicket that he could possibly be on.
We have exposed the fact that the only answers the Tories have when asked the sticky question about the expenditure of vast sums of public money is the same answer as was given by Dr. Johnson, even though they do not put it to us quite strongly, and I certainly do not mean the last words:
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That further Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,600,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1963, for expenditure beyond the sum already provided in the grants for Air Services for the year.

NAVY ESTIMATES

Vote 1. Pay, etc., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £75,581,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay, &amp;c., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. G. W. Reynolds: We now come back to something much more pedestrian than at least the first Estimate which hon. Members discussed during the latter part of the earlier debate today. The other day we approved of Vote A, which provides for 100,000 men. We are now asked to approve of £75½ million by way of pay and allowances for 98,470 men, or about 1,500 below the maximum provision allowed in Vote A. About 440 more men men are expected to be recruited during the coming twelve months and we are asked to provide £31½ million more compared with the current financial year.
I believe that this sum includes the second phase of a pay increase for the men, about which many of us objected because we thought that the full amount now paid should have been paid to the men twelve months ago. I notice that rather more officers are included in the number with reference to marriage allowances, but the same amount of money is included in the Estimate; but there are rather more men and £12,000 less in the Estimates this year in respect of the same allowances. We have seen reports about the Army being more selective about the men enrolled and, as a matter of principle, not taking married men in the normal course. If the explanation for these figures in the Estimate is not that the Navy is doing the same, I should like to know why, with more men, the amount in respect of marriage allowance is being reduced.
During the debate on Vote A we discussed the shortage of technical ratings and petty officers of one kind and another, which appeared to lead to the mothballing of H.M.S. "Blake" and, despite what the Civil Lord said, the undermanning in all probability of H.M.S. "Tiger". I assume that the shortage of technical ratings has been


looked into by the Admiralty. I wonder whether it is possible that pay is one of the reasons for this shortage, that is to say, that less pay and allowances are paid to these highly skilled men compared with the kind of money they could obtain in civil life. We know that it takes a long time to train men for these jobs and that it takes several years before a man draws the maximum pay as a qualified tradesman.
The Explanatory Memorandum states that the Navy takes only one out of three people who apply, but it is also said that recruiting is below requirement for men of the less technical branches. Apparently there are also shortages of men for the fitting out of cruisers, missile destroyers, and new frigates. It may be that the rate of pay is one of the reasons for this. If so, I hope that the Civil Lord will give us some information about it.
I notice in Item Z, "Appropriations in aid", that there is a sudden increase from £88,000 in 1962–63 to £256,000 in the coming financial year in respect of receipts which the Navy obtain for lending personnel to other Governments. This seems to be an astounding increase in one year, and I should like more information about this from the Civil Lord.

8.29 p.m.

Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby: This Vote provides us with an opportunity of ranging rather wider than subsequent Votes down for discussion. We were able in our debate last week to deal with a wide variety of topics. One matter which was not dealt with fully in the previous debate was the important question of manning the Polaris submarines.
Several points arise, and the first is connected with recruitment. How is it proposed to get the men who have the necessary skill and qualifications to perform the much more technical tasks that will be required in these Polaris submarines?
Secondly, with regard to the provision for their training, one of the things that impressed those of us who visited the American Polaris submarine was the length of training that many of those men have had. I talked to an officer who had been on a detachment for no less than two and a half years in industry. If one is thinking in those kinds of terms, and

these submarines are to be ready in four years' time, it is high time that plans were made, and if the Civil Lord could give us information on this point I should be grateful.
The third point that arises is that of pay, and, although I appreciate that it may be a little premature, it is of great importance for it will have some bearing on recruiting the right type of man. In the United States Navy extra pay is awarded to those who were detached to serve in the Polaris submarines. The crews were drawing full submarine pay not only when they were actually at sea but also during their rest period. That had the effect of putting their pay ahead of that of other submariners. I hope that thought is being given to this matter and that we shall be told something about it.
One other point arises on Vote 1, B (3) relating to overseas allowances. I see that the local overseas allowance has gone up rather sharply. This is a small point, but when the Civil Lord is replying to the debate perhaps he will allude to it.
Finally, I do not know whether this is a "fast one" but in his earlier speech I think the Civil Lord said something about the proportion of the manpower in the Navy who are serving at sea. I wonder whether he is able to give us a rather more precise figure of those who are serving at sea, not including those who are attached to a ship which is refitting.

8.32 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I hope that the Civil Lord will give us some information in reply to the rather pertinent questions that have been put to him. We are all anxious to know exactly what the Polaris submarine programme will mean in four years' time when it is completed. As has been pointed out in recent criticisms of Navy expenditure by authoritative bodies, these Estimates are likely to be doubled and sometimes trebled before the ultimate bill has to be paid.
Reference has been made to the manpower position. I am interested in manpower, in connection not only with the manning of the submarines but with the building of the Polaris submarines. I foresee the possibility of a problem in the shipbuilding yards, possibly in the


yards on the Clyde. Technicians and engineers will be drawn into the Polaris programme from industries which badly need all the technical skill and experience to build up the commercial navy which is so necessary to this country. At the end of four or six years we may have this powerful fleet of submarines, but we may at the same time have empty shipyards, denuded of orders for commercial vessels—

The Temporary Chairman (Dr. Horace King): Order. We are discussing the pay of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, and the hon. Gentleman should get back to that subject.

Mr. Hughes: I am sorry, Dr. King. I am trying to work out in my own mind what is the Polaris manpower problem. The hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) referred to it in terms of manpower in submarines, but perhaps I went too far in trying to find out what are the economic consequences of this programme. I apologise for that.
Recently, I put to the Admiralty spokesman Questions about whether this expenditure ended with the building of the submarine. Will there not have to be some vessels escorting the submarine? Will there not have to be hunter-killers chasing the submarines which will be chasing the submarines? Will there not be increased expenditure on the Navy air branch, which we are told is making wonderful progress in discovering submarines? I do not believe that these matters have been overlooked by the Admiralty, but the answer to my Question was a smokescreen—that these extra vessels are not contemplated now. I am afraid that they will become a reality as these Estimates begin to unfold.
I hope that the Labour Government will come to power before these submarines have left the drawing board stage and that the Labour Government will stop the programme, which otherwise will draw away manpower for the submarines which can be obtained only from the manpower necessary to man other kinds of shipping more necessary in the national interest. It will take many engineers and many other skilled men. How will they be trained? At present we have not even a decent elementary education system, let alone a technological basis

for the skilled personnel who will be needed to man the submarines. We shall need men who are expert in electronics and expert electricians—people with great skill of all kinds. They can be found for the Polaris submarines only by being withdrawn from other necessary activities in our national life. I am also interested to know whore the submarines will be based.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. If the Minister were to answer that question he would be out of order.

Mr. Hughes: If these submarines materialise—if ever they do—they will need a base somewhere. Holy Loch may have to be—

The Temporary Chairman: Order. I must ask the hon. Member to acknowledge the rules of Parliamentary procedure and to keep to the Estimate under discussion. We are discussing the pay of Royal Navy men.

Mr. Hughes: I understood that some of the pay in these Estimates went to the designers of the Polaris submarines. The Minister shakes his head, but surely there must have been some executive advance body set up to begin the whole operation. Surely the pay of these people is incorporated in these Estimates. I have not much hope that we shall get a great deal of light thrown upon the Polaris submarine programme.
I should like more information from the Civil Lord in justification of the expenditure contained in Vote 1. There is a lot of interest in the Admiralty these days. There was a very interesting article in the Sunday Times yesterday. I understand that it is a very Conservative newspaper, but yesterday, on page 13, it published an article under the heading
Focus on the massive empire of the Navy —and the cost to the taxpayer.
The price of Admiralty.
It was surprising to see echoed in the sedate columns of an influential Sunday newspaper some of the irreverent questions I have been asking for years. I trust that this interest in the personnel and expenditure of the Royal Navy will be maintained and that hon. Members will do their duty by persisting in their


questions until we get a satisfactory answer.
A very large number of people must have read that article yesterday with some degree of disquiet. At a time when we cannot afford to pay the teachers a living wage I shall not develop that point, Dr. King—we are told of the extraordinary and unnecessary expenditure at the Admiralty. The article says:
Is it really necessary to maintain a headquarters staff of 8,171 civilians and 634 Naval staff to dance attendance on only 273 mostly small ships? Are 75 admirals, vice-admirals and rear-admirals, 24 of them chairborne, justifiable top people?
That is the sort of question that we have usually heard thundered out by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey). Here it is being asked by an influential Sunday newspaper. I believe that there is no more glaring searchlight on this venerable and ancient institution.

Mr. Reynolds: My hon. Friend says that the article mentioned 273 ships. I do not know where the Sunday Times got that figure from. As far as I know, the total is only 190 ships.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. I should be glad if the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) would address the Chair. It is otherwise very difficult for the Official Reporters to hear.

Mr. Hughes: I am sorry that my hon. Friend did not address his remarks to you, Dr. King, for when the Front Bench addresses the back benches it should succeed in keeping within order.
My hon. Friend has put a certain point. I am not able to count all the ships in the British Navy. Probably Vassall did that without being found out until he had handed the information to the Russians. The discrepancy between the figure given in the Sunday Times and that given by my hon. Friend will doubtless be explained by the Civil Lord. The article went on to ask whether the time was not ripe for the new broom urged by Viscount Montgomery in another place last week
… to sweep away the cobwebs from the Service Ministries.
That, of course, is no new plea. I remember that the most vigorous criticism of the Admiralty I have ever heard in the House was a speech delivered

on the Labour Government's Navy Estimates in 1948 by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill). It was a speech which made me blush for its attack on this venerable and ancient institution. The right hon. Gentleman talked of the Admiralty as being top-heavy with bureaucrats finding jobs for themselves and their successors. We were all very impressed by that speech.
Now Viscount Montgomery is asking that a new broom should go to the Admiralty. Perhaps first we had better get a telescope to look at some of the dust. It is obvious that the Admiralty will have mare criticism in the future than it has had in the past.
As the writer of the article in the Sunday Times says:
With all the changing seas of controversy, the cumbersome convoluted tradition-rooted organisation that is the Admiralty steers doggedly on. Two years ago an all-party select committee of estimates come to the main conclusion that it was too large and too complicated and that the distance that separated the two composite parts, in London and Bath, aggravated these defects.
Although there has been a slight nominal reduction this year, it will go up again next year, and the explanation will be that the increase is due to the Polaris programme. No doubt if we are to have a Polaris programme—and this is probably the most expensive weapon in the armoury of competing nations at present—we can look forward to the time when the Admiralty and the Minister will have to come to this Committee and advocate more and more expenditure which the right hon. Gentleman will find it much more difficult to explain.
As the Sunday Times says:
Superficially, indeed, the Admiralty set-up today is wide open to Gilbertian ridicule "—

The Temporary Chairman: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will link his very interesting remarks to Vote 1.

Mr. Hughes: If you had allowed me to proceed to the very next sentence, Dr. King, you would have heard that it says:
All this to look after a numerically negligible fleet, some 86,000 officers and ratings (of whom little more than half are actually afloat) 9,000 Marines and 3,000 Wrens",
all in the Vote.

The Temporary Chairman: I do not like bandying words with the hon. Gentleman, but we are discussing the men and officers and not the apparatus, which the Sunday Times criticises.

Mr. Hughes: This article refers to "Gilbertian ridicule", and it is rather Gilbertian to think of the apparatus without the officers and the officers without the apparatus. I urge all hon. Members who have not read about the price of Admiralty in the Sunday Times —[HON. MEMBERS: "We have."] Then I hope that they have digested what it says and that the Minister has come prepared with an answer.
Other people are interested in the heavy burden of expenditure. The Guardian of Saturday, 16th March, said:
The Admiralty is strongly criticised by the Comptroller and Auditor-General for overspending on research and development contracts. In comments on the Navy Appropriation Account published yesterday he points out that taking seven of the larger cases alone original estimates of some £20 million have risen in the current estimates"—

The Temporary Chairman: Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to come to the matter under discussion. We are not discussing the Navy in general. We are discussing the pay of the Royal Navy and of the Royal Marines. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to confine his remarks to Vote 1.

Mr. Hughes: We will find it very difficult to conduct a debate of this kind if we are to discuss the Admiralty and the Navy as separate institutions. Here is an important criticism in what I regard as one of our most serious newspapers—
Admiralty criticised for £50 million overspending on seven projects "—
and when I try to draw attention to it in this Committee, where we should be discussing this subject, I am declared out of order. I sit down as a protest.

8.50 p.m.

Commander Anthony Courtney: I wish to take up only one point raised by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). It concerns his anxiety about how we are to man the Polaris fleet of submarines. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but not quite with the form in which he puts it.
My concern is that the £75½million which we are voting tonight is insufficient

to meet this among many other commitments. I believe this to be so for two reasons. We simply do not have either the ships or the manpower to meet our worldwide commitments. This is due to an imbalance of our forces. A number of my hon. Friends and myself and one right hon. Gentleman opposite have put our names to a Motion calling attention to this imbalance relating to the Royal Navy and to the continental military strategy which takes such a great part of our defence Vote.
That is due, I believe, to a reversal of priorities by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence when, in his speech in the recent defence debate, he put second in his list of cornerstones the allocation of manpower and of atomic or nuclear forces to N.A.T.O., whereas he has placed third in his list of priorities the defence of British commitments throughout the world, which particularly affect the Royal Navy and its manpower. In my view, this should come second.
The second of my reasons why the £75½ million is not sufficient is that we cannot man even our existing ships. Hon. Members opposite have, quite rightly, drawn attention to the sad departure to reserve of H.M.S. "Blake" and also to the shortfall in technical personnel in H.M.S. "Tiger". As shown by the Memorandum accompanying the Navy Estimates, we have a shortfall in officers, both educationally and numerically. I should like an explanation by my hon. Friend the Civil Lord about the fact that we seem to have dropped the educational qualification to two G.C.E. passes at A level instead of the three which, I understood, obtained last year. Even at this reduced educational standard, we appear to have a shortfall of officers.
We must plan for expansion. For that reason, I am dissatisfied by the fact that in last year's Votes, it was clear that the Civil Lord had not made provision for this year concerning the "Blake" and the "Tiger", to which I have referred. I am very much afraid, in view of the obviously expanding commitments of the Royal Navy, that we may have a similar position next year. I should like a reply about this.
On Subhead Z, dealing with receipts, to which the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) referred, I should


like further explanation of the large sum —now over £l million—of receipts in respect of personnel serving with international defence organisations, which I believe to be the greater part of Subhead Z. Furthermore, perhaps the Committee could have an assurance on the future trend of receipts in respect of personnel loaned to Government Departments.
I refer particularly to the reorganisation of the Ministry of Defence. Are we in future years to see this sum increasing and, therefore, to have a greater sum available for Vote 1? Under the new arrangements, will the operational intelligence centre at the Admiralty, for example, which, I trust, will be preserved, be transferred to the Ministry of Defence and, therefore, rank for a receipt in the Navy Estimates? Will we see the operational headquarters at the Admiralty similarly transferred to the Ministry of Defence and, therefore, forming part of Subhead Z? I should like clarification of all these points. Of the three Service Departments in London, we have one operational headquarters, namely, the Admiralty. I hope that this will not be lost sight of in the reorganistion which is taking place.
I should like to make a plea that the Board of Admiralty, with its admirable delegation of authority to the Sea Lords, should be preserved in the new organisation. I should like to say a word, too, for civil servants in the Admiralty. We believe that we have a rather particular breed of civil servant in the Admiralty. As a naval officer who has worked with them, I think I can say, for other hon. Members as well as myself, that we have always found that type of civil servant to be something rather unusual in Whitehall. We hope that in the new defence reorganisation, the indentity of the Admiralty civil servant will not be lost in the new and wider organisation.

8.55 p.m.

Captain Walter Elliot: I should like to ask my hon. Friend one question under Subhead B, "Educational allowances". I notice that there is quite a big increase, of perhaps 20 per cent., whereas the marriage allowance for the year before and this year remains the same. I am very glad to see this increase. From my own experience in the Navy I

am quite convinced that one's expenses rise not when one gets married, or need not, hut that it is a different matter with a family, and I should very much like to see the proportion of the amount spent on education become a very much higher proportion of the amount allowed for married allowance. The sum for education has gone up this year and I hope that that will continue to be the case.
I should be interested to hear from my hon. Friend why there has been a 20 per cent. increase this year over last year, which I should like to repeat, I very much welcome.

8.56 p.m.

Mr. Brian Harrison: I intervene in the debate with considerable diffidence as I cannot pretend to know very much about the Navy. There is, however, one thing that I should like my hon. Friend the Civil Lord to give us some indication about on this Vote and that is just how much he expects the Polaris venture to swell the Vote.
So far as I can see, the difference between last year's Vote and this Vote is marginal and nothing that one can see under this subheading gives an indication as to what Polaris will cost. The reason I mention this is that I think that my hon. Friend will find that when he comes to finance under this Vote, this venture will leave nothing for the rest of the Navy. I think that it is an extremely ill-advised venture and one that the Navy would do well to watch so that it does not suddenly find itself left with a few atomic tubes on the bottom of the sea.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order, Dr. King. Are these remarks, in view of your previous Ruling, in order?

The Temporary Chairman: I am sorry, but I did not hear what the hon. Member said.

Mr. Harrison: I am extremely sorry, Dr. King, if I trespass beyond the bounds of order.
I was worried very considerably about the fact that from the figures in this Vote one was unable to see how much of the money concerned would be allocated to this extremely foolish venture of equipping and manning Polaris submarines. I was referring entirely to the actual crew, and so on, as it is in this Vote, and I hope that my hon. Friend will watch


this cuckoo in the nest so that it does not mean that he is unable to pay any other Service men in the Navy when he has to find crews, double crews for the status symbol.
There is another thing to which I want to refer most seriously and I think that I may find a little more sympathy from my hon. Friend the Civil Lord on this. It is the question of compensation for and recruiting of the technical and professional people. I think that it comes within this Vote.
The allowances, and so on, paid to the various officers and men are, of course, put as a total in this Vote, and it is rather difficult to see just how the sums are allocated, but it seems to me that in this Service, as in the other Services, we are running compensation or pay for these men, the specialists, in a sort of horse and buggy day way.
This is an important question, because no matter what equipment we may have in the Navy it is essential that we should have a really first-class type of technical people, for it is they who will make the Navy good or bad, effective, or inefficient. Therefore, I think that it is most important that a form of compensation on merit primarily should be paid.
I would refer my hon. Friend to a report which was brought out by the United States armed forces by Mr. Cordiner and entitled, "A modern concept of manpower management and compensation for personnel of the uniformed Services." I would strongly recommend that my hon. Friend gets his Department to study this. I appreciate that it is now five years out of date, but the principles are the same. I had the very great privilege of being taken in the Pentagon to meet some of the members of that committee and spending a whole half day with them in going through the problems which the report covers. They produced some very novel ideas, and I cannot help feeling that some of my hon. Friend's current embarrassments, and the current embarrassments of the other Service Ministries, might have been overcome if more attention had been paid to such a report as this.
There is some difficulty about the American report because of the language, but to my certain knowledge the War

Office translated it. It has been translated, and I am sure that now that the three Departments are combined together it should be possible for that translation to be borrowed from the War Office.
To give just a small indication of what they did in the United States about an adequate form of compensation, a special recruiting campaign for highly proficient technical people was carried through, and the Americans found that by manning an aircraft carrier with personnel paid higher than the average personnel in the aircraft carrier, and by selecting them carefully, though the wage bill, or the salary bill, if one may so call it, was higher, because of the lack of accidents and damage to aircraft, and so on, by the complement of that ship, there was a net saving. This is the sort of thing which would well merit an investigation.
I hope that my hon. Friend will have the Admiralty study an adequate method of compensating the really key personnel who are so essential to give us the type of Navy we have come to take for granted, a really first-class Service.

9.4 p.m.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: One of the difficulties has been to find ships in which to put the men who go to sea, although I think that the situation now is better than it was and that more of both officers and men are spending more time now at sea than they have done for some time past.
I have had a look at the allowances and daily rates of extra pay set out in Appendix 1 to see whether the differentials—to use the current word—to encourage people to go to sea are as great as they have been in the past. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Civil Lord will have all the answers at his finger-tips, and without going into details perhaps he will be able to indicate that the matter is in his mind and that the situation is satisfactory.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. John Farr: The increase of roughly three times, from £88,000 to £256,000 in Subhead Z, "Appropriations in aid", is very large, and I should like my hon. Friend the Civil Lord to answer two questions in that connection. First, do these payments


cover all the expenses involved? Secondly, can he illuminate the reasons for the increase?
I hope that in future Estimates there will be a separate Vote for the Polaris force. The attempt to include such a Force within the Votes which we are now considering only distorts the picture.

9.7 p.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: What I want to say will not, I hope, induce the Lord to feel anything but civil, either in the matter of its length or of its content. I want to take up the observation of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot) in respect of education allowances under Subheads B and D. I have a lot of correspondence on this, necessarily because most of the Navy at one time or another goes through my constituency, and I have had such baffling situations arise as a man who wrote to me first from Shotley, secondly, from Culdrose, and finally, from my own constituency in respect of the terrible difficulties which those rapid moves made in the education of his children.
I hope that the Civil Lord and those who serve him will be generous in their interpretations of the rules, for nothing is more of a tangle than the attempt to get children educated when postings take place with such rapidity.

9.8 p.m.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing): The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) was quite right to say that the pay increase was due to the delay—giving one half last year and one half this. That is why there has been the abrupt increase.
I noticed the discrepancy in the marriage allowances and I wondered what bad happened. The answer is that the statistical experts have worked out that as we have many younger people in the Navy—and I have made it clear that the number of youths in H.M.S. "Ganges" is now reaching 3,000—the average number of married people in the Navy will go down marginally next year and instead of being 50 per cent. will be 49–8 per cent. That decrease is reflected in the figures for the marriage allowances.
The subject of H.M.S. "Blake" was raised by a number of hon. Members,

including my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby). Perhaps I can go rather into more detail than I had the opportunity to do last week. I warned the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) that I would take up this matter. On the Army Estimates he said that Blake "had been mothballed because we were short of just 12 electrical ratings. I do not know where he got that figure from, but I should like to put it right, for he was very much mistaken. The facts are that "Blake" would have needed a total of 85 technicians, to use the broad term—31 electrical, 11 radio, 15 weapons and 28 engine room.
Electricals are the main ones—31—but we were short of all the others, for four reasons. First, because of the Malta run-down, we had kept over 20 in these categories there when we had expected them to be available for manning new ships. We manned H.M.S. "Albion" within the 88,000 U.K. adult male ceiling.

Mr. E. G. Willis: H.M.S. "Albion" was expected.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: Not at that time. When we agreed in 1957 on the 88,000 U.K. adult male ceiling we did not expect to have to man H.M.S. Albion ". That added 28. I made the point that three County class destroyers were coming forward dead punctually, even rather ahead of time. We are due to man three Tribals and six Leanders in the next few months. These ships alone require 66 radio electrical ratings, 40 chief petty officer and petty officer electrical, and 46 senior skilled electrical ratings.
This threw a considerable strain on us. The shortage cannot be put right overnight. I have looked up recruiting figures in these categories since 1956–7. We were then 223 short of our target. In 1957–58 we were 211 short. Last year, 1961–62, we exceeded the target by 11. All the time we were putting up the target, and again this year we look like exceeding our target by the end of March.
We are putting this matter right. The list of remedies is so long that I hesitate to bore the Committee with it. Perhaps I could write to those hon. Members who in the past have asked what we are doing to put the matter right. I have said that it will take time, and there is a list of 26 different things we are doing,


some of which are short-term and some of which are long-term, to make up the deficit.

Mr. Willis: In respect of the artificer apprentices—and quite a number of these must be artificer apprentices—I understood that the Navy was getting almost double the number of applicants for entry as were selected. Does this mean that the quality of the applicants is not measuring up to Admiralty requirements?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the figure overall is that we take only one out of three, so in respect of artificers, if we were taking one out of two, that would be better than average. We ask of these technicians a fairly high degree of education, and it is a reflection on our national education system that we are getting more and more people coming in. I am sure that we shall meet our needs, and we are raising the ceiling all the time. In fact we are raising it to 650 in the coming year and I am sure that this will eventually make up our requirements, but I will send the hon. Gentleman details of what is being done.

Mr. Reynolds: In the Explanatory Memorandum we are given the overall figure of about 60 per cent. for re-engagement. Can the hon. Gentleman give the Committee any indication of the re-engagement rate in this highly-skilled and highly-technical field where, presumably, there is far more competition with industry? Is re-engagement below the average? If so, are the rewards being paid by the Admiralty enough to keep people in, particularly petty officers, to enable them to have something more to go for?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I think about 70 per cent. of this category re-engage, but given time I shall be able to check that figure.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Commander Courtney) asked about personnel on loan. It is true that the figures under Z (1) have changed considerably. The reason is that we have increased the number of personnel we are lending to embryo or emerging navies. It has been our tradition to help these navies, and we have lent Ghana 24 officers and 20 other

ranks. We get paid back for them. We have two small ships on loan to Libya at the present time and we have loaned five officers and 11 other ranks, and we are repaid. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we have only one officer, one artificer and one chief petty officer of the electrical branch on loan to Ghana, so it does not make a substantial difference.

Commander Courtney: May I ask my hon. Friend how many we have on loan to Malaya?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I can give the figure for Malaya. It is not in quite the same category, and so this figure does not come under Subhead Z. The men are paid directly, that is to say, Malaya meets their cost directly rather than that we should pay them and be paid back. There are 19 officers and 33 other ranks. In Australia there are 25 officers and 53 other ranks and in New Zealand 14 officers and four other ranks. That is the measure of the liaison between the Commonwealth Navies and ourselves.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West asked about the manning of Polaris and I think the same point was referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Harrow, East. I do not think I can go further than did my noble Friend in another place. The overall total based on five submarines should be about 2,000 officers and men. We have a committee which is looking at the whole question of manning and the hon. Gentleman is right in thinking that they will have to be manned on a two-crew system. The committee is examining this, and the question of training, and we hope that it will report in about two weeks' time. Those who visited the Polaris submarines will remember that there are 20 officers and 100 men in each so that, roughly, one can work out the figures.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: Can my hon. Friend say what committee he refers to? Is it an official committee?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is an internal committee.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: Is not the point that when these men leave the Service, they will be in great demand in industry, so that it should be possible to obtain good men because they will know that after their Service career their prospects in industry will be so good?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I am not sure about their value to industry. Being specialists, I should have thought that they would be much more valuable to the Navy. I can think of many people who would be valuable to industry, but I should think that these people would be of tremendous value to us and I hope that they will stay in the Navy for a very long time.

Captain John Litchfield: I am sorry, but I have not been able to follow my hon. Friend. Can he say definitely that the additional men required for the Polaris programme will be available before the arrival of the submarines, so that they will not have to be taken from other ships?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: My right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence has said from time to time that the Royal Navy would not suffer in its conventional rôle as a result of the extra task to be put upon it. That is as good a fundamental and sound statement as I should wish to hear.
The hon. Gentleman also asked how many men were serving at sea. There are 30,000 general service ratings at sea and 27,000 on shore. I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) whether we encouraged people to go to sea, and we are indeed doing so. There is no pecuniary encouragement, but I doubt whether the Navy would need that, since men join to go to sea and I am glad to note how keen young men are to go to sea. We are looking at the point raised earlier by the hon. Member. whether we could use "Blake" at some later stage as a training ship, so that youngsters could go to sea earlier and their keenness could be harnessed earlier and they would not be allowed to go to a shore station and forget some of their training.
The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) referred to an article in the Sunday Times. This point relates to the provisions of Vote 3, the headquarters Vote. Not one of the people under Vote 1 is concerned with the Polaris submarine programme. We have an embryo staff at headquarters which would come under the provisions of Vote 3.

Mr. Willis: What about the people coming from America?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: They come under Vote 3; they are on loan from headquarters.
I have armed myself with a few figures, because I knew that the hardy annual would come up again. He did not let me down in any way. It was raised again. Although it will never be reported, I think that for the sake of the Committee I might just repeat it. In 1935 there was a total of 88 admirals with a Vote A of 91,567. We had considerably more admirals then for a smaller Vote A than we have now for a larger Vote A. Today the total number of admirals, including medical and dental ones and those on terminal leave, is 77 against a Vote A of 98,000. I remind hon. Members opposite, who no doubt had their own anxieties when they were responsible, that in 1952 there were 109 admirals with a Vote A of about 148.000. Pro rata we are doing slightly better than they were. As I have said before, we are now reaching the end of our rundown. We probably shall not be cutting the flag officer list very much more, particularly as we have taken on the Polaris commitment.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Harrow, East touched on the educational standards. I think that he is misinformed here, though he very seldom is. We required two "A" levels last year and two "A" levels this year for our officer entry.

Commander Courtney: Was it not three "A" levels at one period?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: No, it has never been three "A" levels. It is two "A" levels. I said that something like 67 of our cadets had got three "A" levels, but we were not calling for that standard. My hon. and gallant Friend also touched on the strength of our ships. We have 70 on the Far East station. In addition, there are the New Zealand and Australian ships—some 30—to add to that. I realise that I am including in that figure 20 minesweepers. They can perform very useful functions in the cold war, as we saw on the pirate business recently, and even at Brunei.
I have dealt with the question of loan personnel. My hon. and gallant Friend raised the question of defence reorganisation. How glad I am to collect ideas. I am not sure that it is very easy in a


rather restricted debate of this sort, but the whole idea is that we should, during the defence debates, collect ideas from all sides. I am not sure that I could quite agree with my hon. and gallant Friend about the intelligence remaining under the three separate organisations. This is a matter for discussion. I think that there is a lot of advantage in amalgamating the three intelligence divisions.

Commander Courtney: I think that my hon. Friend misunderstood me. I was referring to the operational intelligence centre which is a submarine attacking organisation, as I think my hon. Friend knows, and is a purely naval intelligence organisation. I was asking that it should retain its identity within the Admiralty.

Mr. On-Ewing: I apologise. I misunderstood my hon. and gallant Friend. I thought that he said just the intelligence staff. This is a matter at which we will look most carefully. It may be that all the operational plotting will be undertaken at the Ministry of Defence which already has an operational plot.
I come to the point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carshalton (Captain W. Elliot). He dealt with educational allowances. The explanation is that the allowances have been increased by 25 per cent. We have not sold the idea to the lower deck that, if they are being moved around, their sons could benefit by going to boarding school. I am glad to say that we have very large numbers of sons of ratings at the Royal Hospital School at Holbrook.
It still seems that there is a sharp demarcation line in this matter. My hon. and gallant Friend will notice that in these Estimates the officer education allowance is very high, but it is still very low for ratings. However, it must be remembered in connection with the allowances for officers that one-third of all our officers are ex-lower deck, 10 per cent. being upper yard men and 20 per cent. being S.D. officers.

Mr. Reynolds: I agree with the remarks the Civil Lord has just made about the amount being paid for ratings. Can he give us any idea of what is being done to inform lower deck men of the advantages which are available and to persuade them to use them?

Mr. On-Ewing: This is best done through their divisional officers. We have not got any special organisation for it, although they are at liberty to discuss the problems. It is not so much convincing the ratings: it is convincing their wives and families which is so necessary. So it is difficult to sell this idea.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) who said that the disorganisation in a child's education as a result of moving about a lot was considerable. I would remind him that that was one reason why, about five years ago, we lowered the age for educational allowances from 11 to 9. It was thought that that would help particularly the bright child to negotiate the 11-plus obstacle. However, I cannot agree with his views about Polaris. He said that he was not at home on the sea, but I certainly know that he is extremely at home on the tideway.

Dr. Bennett: Might I inform my hon. Friend that he is not referring to the same hon. Member? The remarks about education were made by me but the comments on Polaris were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison).

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I apologise. I was, of course, referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison). I would remind him that between 1 and 2 per cent. of the total Navy Vote will be spent on Polaris in the coming year.
A number of hon. Members have raised the question of the pay of technicians. The very fact that we are now more than meeting our targets shows that people are coming to appreciate that the technical training in the Navy is absolutely first class; not only that they get a good career in the Navy but that, should they wish, they can obtain good jobs outside. That is why we are getting the people we want. The advantage of the Grigg Review every two years is that we are constantly relating the attractions of industrial life and pay to the attractions of a Service career. We are, therefore, adjusting Service pay, rewards and allowances so that a person can feel that he is doing something worth while and is being comparably paid with his opposite number in industry.
Although I will study the point raised concerning the Cordiner Report, it must be remembered that we have concentrated on long-term personnel while the United States have concentrated on short-service personnel; an intense period of training with only three or four years of service followed by a bounty. It is a totally different philosphy and they sometimes feel a little jealous of the loyalty we get from our long-service men.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) referred to the Z (1). I dealt with the question of Ghana and Libya. I must inform my hon. Friend that the question of a separate Vote for Polaris is really a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence. I have tried to deal with the points that have been raised and I hope that the Committee will now agree to pass the Vote.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £75,581,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of the pay etc., of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.

Vote 4. Research and Development and other Scientific Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a sum, not exceeding £25,895,000, be granted to Her Majesty to defray the expense of scientific services, including a grant in aid to the National Institute of Oceanography, and a subscription to the International Hydro-graphic Bureau, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Reynolds: This Vote—and it has quite a long title—refers to a comparatively smaller part of the expenditure with which we are concerned. It compares with the large items in Subhead B of about £18 million, particularly the large item of £15 million on research and development contracts. This is the Vote under which one of my hon. Friends may wish to bring up the Comptroller and Auditor-General's Report, which he endeavoured to do a short while ago. This Report, of which we were able to get copies on Friday, refers to past years but, looking at it, we must ask for assurances from the Civil Lord that some of the points made in it have been remedied by

the Admiralty before we can approve the expenditure for the coming financial year.
It is pointed out by the Comptroller and Auditor-General in the 1961–62 accounts that as long ago as October, 1958, proposals had been made to keep a closer check on expenditure, but that not until May, 1960 was a special committee set up by the Admiralty to look into proposals made about eighteen months before. According to the Comptroller and Auditor-General, it took eighteen months to set up that Committee. The working party set up in 1960 has now completed its survey of the proposals of 1958, and its report is now being studied within the Admiralty. Those proposals were made in October, 1958, yet we have still only reached the stage of the report being considered by the Admiralty.
The Comptroller and Auditor-General mentions a number of cases in 1961–62, but I shall not weary the Committee with the details at this late hour. He draws attention to estimates of £20 million for various aspects of research and development that have now gone up to £35 million. Of course, I know that in this work the original estimates generally have to be considerably varied—unfortunately, we have got used to that in almost all work of this kind in recent years—but, in reading the Comptroller and Auditor-General's Report, we have to express some surprise at the way in which these things appear to have been dealt with in 1961–62.
We must have information about the comments of the Comptroller and Auditor-General, and we also need to know a little more about what is included in the £25 million or more that we are here discussing. The Memorandum to the Navy Estimates in the Statement on Defence mentions Dounreay—the construction is completed there—and we are told that work is being done on action data, automation and oceanography, but that does not appear to account for the main item of £15,681,900 on research and development contracts under Subhead B (2). I hope that the Civil Lord will give us some information about the nature of the contracts, and of the work being done under them.

9.33 p.m.

Commander Courtney: We are being asked to vote nearly £26 million for research and development, and this is


probably the moment to draw the Civil Lord's attention to a point of which I have given him notice—a serious gap in the Navy's research and development programme. In my view, this may amount to a rather serious error of judgment. I have spoken in the Committee before—perhaps wearied it—about my ideas of the evolution of weapons. Suffice it now to say that I believe that for purely naval purposes the era of the gun is virtually over and that it is already succeeded—having had a transitional stage in which man flew in his own projectile—by the guided missile.
Under its research and development programme, the Royal Navy has developed some excellent guided missiles. We know of Seacat, the short-range surface-to-air weapon, and there is Seaslug, of which the Mark H will soon come into service, which, from all information available to the Committee, is also an excellent surface-to-air anti-aircraft weapon. But whereas the Russians, the Americans, the Swedes and the French have developed in service, or are developing, a surface-to-surface guided missile to take the place of the old-fashioned naval gun, no mention of such a development appears in our research and development programme.
From what information is available to me, I believe that we have, as a deliberate stroke of policy some years ago, omitted to follow this line of development. The result is that in our fine "County" class of so-called guided missile destroyers—and many hon. Members have drawn attention to the irrelevancy, to put it mildly, of that description of these fine ships—we have Seacat and Seaslug for our surface-to-air weapons. These are anti-aircraft weapons—defensive, in fact. They are, in fact, anti-aircraft defences. But the surface-to-surface-weapons with which the "Devonshire" class are supposed to fight a day or night action are of an old design though, admittedly, they are rapid-firing 4·5 inch guns.
I would draw the Committee's attention to the fact, which the Civil Lord should know well, that the Russians, in their new type of guided missile destroyer, have probably perfected and have certainly fitted in a numerous class of ships what I believe to be an effective surface-

to-surface guided missile. Furthermore, they have mounted this weapon in a small 40-knot armoured motor gunboat which, in the narrow waters where the Russians excel, might have a serious impact on our own forces.
I have a personal feeling about this, because by a mere chance I was not appointed flag lieutenant and squadron signal officer to Vice-Admiral L. E. Holland on H.M.S. "Hood". I have studied the shortcomings of naval gunnery and I realise that but for the accident of not having that appointment I should not be addressing this Committee today. I feel, as a signals man, and I hope that other hon. and gallant Members will not take my comments amiss, that, as was the case in the past, the First World War not excepted, naval gunnery may again have slipped back a little. I should like the Civil Lord's emphatic assurance that these developments will go ahead and that in the light of Russian developments we shall not lag behind with Royal Navy surface-to-surface guided missiles.

9.38 p.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I hope that we shall have some reply to the debate in the light of the criticisms made in the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General. Searching criticisms are made of research expenditure, which started with comparatively small sums which have very considerably increased. This has caused a good deal of criticism and disquiet.
I have previously drawn the attention of the Committee to an article in the Guardian headed "Admiralty criticised for £15 million overspending on seven projects". If there were only one project it could be blurred over, but here are seven different projects which started in a comparatively small way and grew snowball-like to a considerable expenditure, with the result that the Comptroller and Auditor-General has made severe criticisms which have been taken up and noted at great length by some of the most influential newspapers.

Mr. Fan: The Daily Worker?

Mr. Hughes: If the hon. Member does not know the difference between the Daily Worker and the Guardian his political education is not as good as his naval education.

Mr. Willis: The hon. Gentleman has had no naval education either.

Mr. Hughes: I do not read the Daily Worker but I read the Guardian and the quotation to which I am about to refer is from the Guardian. If the hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) reads the Daily Worker perhaps that accounts for some of the subversive thoughts which he expresses in debate.

Mr. Farr: On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to continue to read to us these long and laborious reports from newspapers?

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir R. Grimston): I have heard nothing out of order.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Further to that point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member opposite—sitting down—to invite my hon. Friend to embark on long quotations from other newspapers?

The Deputy-Chairman: It is not in order for hon. Members to make remarks while sitting down.

Mr. Hughes: I had not the slightest idea that I was being politically controversial. I only want some kind of answer to the very objective criticisms which have been made by a responsible auditor.

Mr. Willis: The Auditor-General.

Mr. Hughes: Yes, the Auditor-General. I once knew a county clerk who said that he was not afraid of anyone except the auditor. I do not know whether the Admiralty is afraid of auditors, but we certainly should have a reply to some of these criticisms.
My hon. Friend has made one criticism, but there are other projects. He dealt with one, but there are six others. The situation is summarised in the following paragraph:
Another project which it was originally thought would cost about £450,000 has ended up by costing some £2·5 millions. Between June, 1961, and June, 1962 alone, the estimated cost rose by some £1 million.
We are embarking upon a new ocean of astronomical expenditure. We are embarking upon Polaris expenditure which has so alarmed the hon. Gentleman who interrupted me that he wants a separate Vote. I suggest that we should

examine the causes of this increase in expenditure before this very large sum of Polaris expenditure is embarked upon. This is what the Comptroller and Auditor-General is inviting us to do.
Therefore, I hope that the Minister will not lightly brush away these criticisms on the ground that he has not had time to examine them. I believe that the Admiralty knows all about these things, and knew about them before they were published in the Comptroller and Auditor-General's Report. I hope we can be assured that we shall have a full-dress debate upon the Report, which is a very severe and drastic criticism of Admiralty expenditure by the Comptroller and Auditor-General.

9.42 p.m.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: I think that few will disagree with the importance of the research work that we are discussing. The difficulty is in putting it into practice.
Some reference has been made to the difficulty of choosing the right project, and that applies to all Service Departments. But there is something more than the money involved in voting an extra £1½ million this year, and that is whether we have the scientists to carry out the work. There is great competition for scientists from industry, and I think that it would be a good thing to hear from the Civil Lord how far he is satisfied that the difficulty in getting the right scientists to carry out these projects is being overcome.
I should like to make a short point on Subhead F, relating to the work of the National Institute of Oceanography. understand from an answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) that the reason the Vote has been reduced considerably compared with last year is that a new research ship has now been built and is commissioned. Up to now it has been rather difficult—I do not know why—to get people to take an interest in the problems of oceanography, but I have noticed that during the past year many more people are realising the tremendous importance, not only to the Navy but to the economy of the country as a whole, of what goes on under the sea.
I wonder whether it would be possible to give more publicity to the work which is carried out in this research ship. Some


of the projects in which she is engaged may be purely of a naval and secret nature, but much of the work must be of a general scientific nature and it would be a good thing if an attempt could be made to interest the public in what this ship is doing and where she is doing it. I hope, therefore, that we shall be told that some effort will be made to publicise the work of this new ship. I am glad that at last we have a thoroughly up-to-date research ship in place of the old one.

9.45 p.m.

Dr. Bennett: As one of the very few hon. Members who have been able to visit and inspect fairly fully this new research ship "Discovery", I have been profoundly impressed not only by the ship, which as yet is rather unfurnished with scientific gear—she has only the gear taken out of her predecessor and is looking for more—but by her capacity for future expansion, modification and addition. I was even more impressed by the immense devotion of the scientists and the "boffins" who man her and who do general scientific work on the fauna, the soundings and even the geology of the ocean—the bottom of the ocean, I mean, of course; I should not like anybody to think that I suppose the ocean to be solid. I feel that the ship is a magnificent investment and well worth the money voted by the House towards her.
There was only one point which I should like my hon. Friend to elucidate. It is out of order on a Supplementary Estimate to discuss a reduction, but in the Supplementary Estimate we have a reduction of £1,100,000 in expenditure on scientific projects. Presumably it is in order to discuss this in the Vote because the money will be paid this year instead, owing to the delays. Can my hon. Friend give any further enlightenment on the particular projects which are involved? It is an extremely big error to have been made in the forecast.

Captain Litchfield: May I refer to Subhead F? In the interests of accuracy, and for the purpose of the record, and because the Institute is on the borders of my constituency, may I ask my hon. Friend whether the words "National History Museum" should be "Natural History Museum"?

Mr. Godman Irvine: For rather similar reasons, may I ask my hon. Friend to look at Subhead C? Note 2 states that £80,000 is included for expenses and maintenance costs of the Isaac Newton telescope. Can my hon. Friend tell us what is the position about the telescope and what progress is being made?

Mr. Farr: One of the items doubtless included in the Vote concerns the expense of the hydrographic surveys in the year ahead. No doubt I may refer to the recent hydrographic survey by H.M.S. "Cook". Can my hon. Friend tell me whether H.M.S. "Cook" or possibly H.M.S. "Discovery" are likely to return to the Mindanao depths to measure the correct depths and possibly to make a report?

9.48 p.m.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: May I deal with the various points which have been made? I was asked a question about the Comptroller and Auditor-General's Report. I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), but this report came out only last Friday and the procedure is that the Permanent Secretary will no doubt be closely questioned by the Public Accounts Committee about it. I believe that he has already appeared before the Committee and that he is due to appear again and to be questioned about the details here.
I hope hon. Members understand that it is a little difficult at short notice to try to produce a sensible answer to some fundamental criticisms on a problem which every Government, whatever its complexion, has found extremely difficult. I hope that hon. Members opposite will not think that I am making a party point if I say that they will concede that it is difficult. We recollect that they had these responsibilities with the Princess flying boat and the Brabazon, and there was a decision not to go ahead with supersonic flight because it was thought to be too expensive and beyond the bounds of this country's resources. These decisions were taken on the best scientific advice at the time, and they turned out not to be very wise decisions. I have no doubt that, although our decisions are taken on good scientific advice, we also occasionally make similar errors.

Mr. Willis: What happened about the Zuckerman Committee's Report, which mentioned this matter?

Mr. Orr-Ewing: I have done my "prep" correctly. I spent the weekend reading that Report and I have a copy of it here. Perhaps I can write to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Willis: It was published in July, 1961.

Mr. Orr-Ewing: That is so, but we have been going into the matter. It is extremely difficult and is not a question on which we can arrive at an easy, succinct and accurate conclusion. I should prefer to write to the hon. Member and give him a considered reply.
I should now like to deal with the main point, appearing under B (2). This was raised by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) and by some of my hon. Friends. I concede, of course, that this is the biggest lump sum under this Vote—£15,681,900. However, it does cover one reduction. There is some reduction in research and development on nuclear propulsion because we have passed over the hump at Dounreay and now that "Dreadnought" is at sea. There is an increase in the amount for surveillance and target illuminating radars for the next generation of guided missiles. That, of course, is a long way off but we must start putting money into research and development on it now.
Money is also being spent on action data automation, particularly for small ships, while a good deal of extra money is being spent on under-water weapons and under-water research. With the trend towards nuclear submarines and Polaris submarines, that is fundamental to the survival of this country, which depends so much on food and raw materials from abroad. In two world wars we have been challenged on this front, and it is right to devote a lot of our money to research into this aspect of sea warfare. For the same reason, we are spending more money on more powerful sonars, which were called asdics at one time.
I have tried to pick out the main headings. One of the points made in the Zuckerman Report was that we should divert more money to university research under this Vote, In the last five years we have stepped up the amount of research and development under this heading from £100,000 a year to £200,000

a year. This tendency will, I believe, continue and I believe that it is healthy not only for the universities but for the liaison between the universities and the Services.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) asked whether recruiting for the naval scientific service was going well, and I can assure him that it is. The whole question of the scientific service is under consideration. A committee is considering it at the moment because, of course, we want cross-pollination and chances of promotion, and it is difficult to achieve this unless we have a fairly well-grounded scientific service.
My hon. Friend also asked about the expansion of oceanography. There has been a tremendous growth of interest in this, and rightly so since 71 per cent. of the world's surface is covered by sea, and we are deeply dependent on the sea, not only for our food but for our defence. We have expanded our grants for this to £360,000, but the figure has gone clown this time because last year we subscribed £450,000 to R.R.S. "Discovery". We claim back £185,000 of the £360,000.
I was glad to have the approbation of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett). We brought the "Discovery" up to the Pool of London at the end of the Christmas Recess, which was probably not a very suitable time for visitors this year. The National Council of Oceanography held a meeting on board. The Civil Lord of the day is Chairman of the Council, and he said that we were pleased with the ship and were quite sure that we shall get value for our money. I agree.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chelsea (Captain Litchfield) made the shortest, most succinct and accurate speech that I have heard in this Chamber in 12 years. I only wish that some other speeches were as short, accurate and pithy as his contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) raised the question of the Isaac Newton telescope. Progress here has not been quite as fast as we anticipated last year, but I should like to write to my hon. Friend on that matter. Perhaps I could expand on it and explain what has been going on.


We still believe that it has a very considerable future, and we are investing money and effort in it. I will tell my hon. Friend what progress has been made, as I know that the telescope is close to or in his constituency.
I think that that has dealt with all the points.

Mr. Farr: Before my hon. Friend sits down, will he say whether R.R.S. "Discovery" or H.M.S. "Cook" is returning to the Mindanao depths?

Mr. On-Ewing: I think that H.M.S. "Cook" is busy on the Indian Ocean international survey. She was certainly in Singapore when I was there last autumn, and I believe that she is still on that survey. R.R.S. "Discovery" is going out to take part in that survey. It may not be possible to return her to make the measurements which my hon. Friend suggested, but I will look into that.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. Reynolds: The Civil Lord cannot skate round the Comptroller and Auditor-General's Report in the way that he did. We must admit that some of the matters about which we are concerned will be going in the Report in due course, but the main thing with which I am concerned is not the three specific projects that are given, which, obviously, will have to be looked into in very much greater detail by the Public Accounts Committee, but the general method of control of the expenditure under this subhead which I do not think we can allow the hon. Gentleman to push aside, saying that it will be looked into. We are being asked to approve a sum of £25,895,000 tonight.
Paragraph 7 on page iv of the Comptroller and Auditor-General's Report states:
In 1958. the Department of Research Programmes and Planning made proposals with the object of finding ways of maintaining a better financial control of expenditure and estimated costs of work done under research and development contracts.
It goes on to say, in paragraph 8:
The proposals made"—
and one or two other proposals are involved in this as well—
which involved alterations to an Admiralty claim form and increasing by one the number

of copies of the form which should be rendered by a contractor were notified to the Admiralty departments concerned in October, 1958, but no changes appear then to have been made. In May, 1960,"—
there was an interval between October, 1958, and May, 1960, before this happened—
the Admiralty appointed a Working Party to review the financial and contractual procedures in relation to research and development expenditure…
The Working Party has apparently finished its work, although the Comptroller and Auditor-General does not give any indication of that, and its report is being considered by the Admiralty.
We then come to the instances of expenditure. What we are concerned about is what the Admiralty is doing to make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again. I do not want to go into individual items. This is a difficult matter because we want this type of research and development to be carried out as quickly as possible. This work often takes too long and then it has to be speeded up, and the financial control is likely to be less detailed than we would wish. Suggestions about this matter were made in 1958 and we should have an opportunity of finding out why nothing has been done about them.

9.59 p.m.

Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: It is not quite true to say that nothing has been done since 1958. This dates back to the Gibb-Zuckerman Report, which dealt fundamentally with this problem. As a result of that Report and possibly the earlier matter, we have tightened up our control procedure very considerably. The advance survey has been undertaken and we have kept a much tighter financial control on the different processes. The matter must first be assessed. We have to plan the development and then go into production.
As I say, we have kept much tighter control over these matters, but I do not pretend that we have found the solution to the problem. I think that things are better than they were, but they are far from perfect. Having spent most of my working life being concerned with scientific matters in industry, I can say that there is exactly the same problem of controlling finance for research and development there. This is not a problem easy of solution. I think that we have


made considerable improvements in the modern techniques which we are now using.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £25,895,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the expense of scientific services, including a grant in aid to the National Institute of Oceanography, and a subscription to the International Hydro-graphic Bureau, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1964.

It being Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Report of Resolutions to be received Tomorrow.

Committee also report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

SCOTLAND (LAND SETTLEMENT CROFTS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peel.]

10.1 p.m.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grim-stoat): Sir David Robertson.

Mr, John Hall: On a point of order. Am I to understand, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that we are adjourning the House without having had opportunity to debate the spending under the Army Vote of more than £500 million and, if so—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of order. The House is on the Adjournment.

Mr. Anthony Kershaw: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it possible that next year it will at least be feasible to put the Army Vote at the head of the list so that we get an opportunity of talking about the Army?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a question for the Chair.

10.2 p.m.

Sir David Robertson: The Secretary of State for Scotland is the greatest landowner in my constituency. His possessions include land settlement crofts carved out of large farms, mainly after the end of the First

World War, to provide land for returning soldiers and agricultural workers who were anxious to obtain land of their own.
I would say that successive Secretaries of State have developed the original intention and a very good job has been done. I have inspected land settlement crofts at Watten, the central parish of Caithness, and I have greatly admired the work which the Lands Branch of the Department of Agriculture has done in providing well-equipped crofts, good farmhouses, good steadings and sheds, and so on. for men of small means to come into it.
A change, however, has come over the scene in recent years. I learned of it first from a letter which received from my constituent, Mr. A. D. Sutherland, who wrote to me on 3rd July last year, as follows:
For 17 years I was shepherd on the farm of Reaster, Lyth, occupied by Mr. G. M. B. Henderson. Scrabster. When Mr. Henderson sold the farm last October to Mr. George Sinclair. West Murkle, the latter wished to assign one of his department holdings at Murkle to me. Mr. Sinclair applied to the Crofters Commission for approval of this assignation. but in the enclosed letter dated 3rd May, 1962. the Commission refused the application on the ground that the holding should be made available for re-letting on the open market.
In order to allow Mr. Sinclair's parents to join him at Reaster, I had to vacate the house I occupied there, and as I had nowhere to go at that time, Mr. Sinclair gave me the occupation of the house he had occupied at Murkle until his let of the holding ceased on 28th November next, when, as he had assigned the holding to me, I expected to become tenant. Since moving in here have been virtually unemployed apart from attending Mr. Sinclair's stock on the holding.
I am writing to ask if you, sir, can assist me to get the tenancy which was assigned to me. I have experienced the insecurity of living in a tied house for many years having been on farms all my working life and once again the threat of having to move to God knows where looms on the horizon.
A married man with three sons at school and a fourth whom I had intended to work the holding with me now working in Thurso in view of this uncertainty, I feel as many people here do, that I have suffered a gross injustice I would be anxious to know how recent holdings let in Caithness were acquired by the new tenants and where do I fall short, possibly insufficient influence?
It is signed, "A. D. Sutherland." He enclosed with it this letter from the Crofters Commission.
I am sorry to have to quote these letters, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but they are the kernel of the case. It is dated


3rd May, 1962, and addressed to Mr. Sutherland at West Murkle:
Assignation of Croft 3.
I refer to the application Croft: 3 West Murkle, Thurso, Caithness, which Mr. George Sinclair lodged with the Commission for consent under the provisions of Section 8 of the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955 (as amended by the Crofter's (Scotland) Act, 1961), to the assignation of the croft at 3, West Murkle, Thurso, Caithness, to you.
At their meeting on 30th April, 1962, the Commission gave further consideration to the case and to the representations made at the hearing on 16th April, 1962, and I am directed to inform you that they decided to refuse the application on the grounds that the croft should be made available for re-letting on the open market.
The Commission's decision has been intimated to the landlord and to the applicant.
I wrote immediately to the Secretary of State for Scotland, as I always do about a matter raised by a constituent, asking him to make inquiries and to reply to me, which he did. I want to quote from the most recent and important Act, the Crofters (Scotland) Act, 1955. This is the Preamble to the Act:
An Act to make provision for the reorganisation. development and regulation of crofting in the crofting counties of Scotland; to authorise the making of grants and loans for the development of agricultural production on crofts and the making of grants and loans towards the provision of houses and buildings for crofters, cottars and others of like economic status;
A cottar is invariably a farm servant in Scotland. This is what Mr. Sutherland was. The Act could not apply to anyone with greater force than to him. He had been 174 years on Reaster Farm and he is the outstanding livestockman in the north of Scotland. He has won prizes for his employers and for himself. He is allowed to keep some cattle and sheep of his own on his employer's farm. That is usual in Caithness.
Mr. Sutherland came to that croft with the support of the farmers in Caithness—the National Farmers' Union, and, I believe, supported by the headquarters of the National Farmers' Union of Scotland from Edinburgh. He was also supported by the farmworkers' union, which wrote to me on the 18th January:
The local branch of the farm workers' union are behind Alex Sutherland in his fight for the holding at West Murkle. As secretary of the Thurso branch I would like very much to see Mr. Sutherland get the holding. It

would be a change to see a farm worker get a bit of ground in this county.
I am,
Yours faithfully,
A. Mackay.
We have a very long and bad record of farm servants being compelled to emigrate from the homeland. There are more Caithness people in Canada tonight than in Caithness, and the same I suppose applies to Australia, the United States and other places overseas. We have dozens and dozens of men like Alex Sutherland who have spent the greater part of their working lives working for farmers and it is quite impossible for them to get land. Here was this man, with all his experience and quality being brought into this matter because it was the tenant of the croft at West Murkle who bought the Reaster farm where Sutherland was the shepherd, the man in charge. Mr. Sinclair needed a bigger house than the one on the croft and if the deal was to go through it was essential that Sutherland should vacate the farmhouse, which he did on the assurance from Sinclair that he would assign the croft to him.
Sutherland is not a lawyer, and he believed all that had been told him, so he got out. So the farmer got what he wanted, the sale; and the buyer got what he wanted; but the man who made it possible and went into West Murkle was told he should not have gone in. He had no authority to go in, because when Sinclair went out he had to renounce the croft. Sinclair may not have known that, but for Sutherland it was an act of good will.
I would support the case that as crofts become vacant they should be put up for open competition, but I was very surprised to learn that the objector in this case was the Secretary of State. He objected to this outstanding farm worker getting into West Murkle, and I doubt if there is a man his equal in the north of Scotland or who would be more qualified for it, even if there were 50 or more applicants. But he did not get it.
But other crofts have changed hands for money—large sums of money. Crofters who were just wanting to get out have had sums of money instead of renouncing their crofts. They go to the open market and look around for the


highest bidder, and with the prosperity in agriculture, agricultural land is in demand, particularly by land-hungry men. I received the information from farmers in Caithness. This is to the outstanding credit of the farmers. It was they who brought this matter to me first. They are not willing that a first-class farm servant should remain without a croft for ever. They wrote to me, and I learned in October that crofts were being assigned for cash to the highest bidder.
Once again, I wrote to the Secretary of State giving him the information which had come to me. Simultaneously I read the Reports of the Crofters Commission. I had not seen this before. The first I refer to appeared in 1959. This is what the Crofters Commission had to say about assignations:
In administering section 8 of the Act, relating to assignation, the Commission have constantly been mindful of the crofter's right to nominate his successor. They have felt bound to approve an assignation where there was no valid objection to the proposed assignee, provided always that the other statutory requirements were satisfied. It is now clear, however, that apart from simple transfers within the family, a practice of 'selling' the croft to the highest bidder is spreading. When assigning to a stranger, the temptation is strong to secure the highest possible price for the permanent improvements, and in pursuit of that the outgoing crofter may give scant consideration to the crofting qualifications or suitability of the bidders.
This is an extraordinary statement, that he seeks to get "the highest possible price for the permanent improvements". The improvements on any croft owned by the Secretary of State or anyone else are the owner's responsibility, the man who owns the land and the buildings. He is the inheritor of all improvements made throughout generations, maybe, of tenants, and he should compensate the tenant for all permanent improvements.
The Act does give a crofter the right to nominate his successor, but it is, of course, up to the Crofters Commission to approve, and how the Crofters Commission approves some of the cases which I will mention hon. Members will be as good judges of as I am. The buyer gave £8,000 for the croft at 6, West Murkle, for a croft into which the first tenant went—I imagine in the 1920s—without having to pay a penny down, into a fully equipped croft having to buy only the seed to produce a crop. Now the croft is sold for £8,000, but the land

and the buildings still remain the property of the Secretary of State.
The newspapers rang me up about this time and, as they so frequently do, they also went to the other side. This statement appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail about the end of 1962:
One of the crofts mentioned by Sir David was recently taken over by Mr. Robert Mackay, at West Murkle, Thurso, His father, Mr. I. Mackay, farmer of Stitley, Thurso, said: My son took the holding over as a going concern. He paid about £8,000, but that was for the buildings, improvements and stock, including 30 dairy cows'.
I find it difficult to understand how it could be for the buildings, and when I looked up the valuation roll I found that the buildings belonged to the Secretary of State. Nevertheless, £8,000 was paid. What crofter or cottar within the meaning of the Crofters Act could find £8,000? He could not borrow money from the banks to buy dairy cows, because banks in Scotland are not allowed to advance money for that purpose. This practice is entirely contrary to the basic and fundamental principles of all the crafting Acts, which are designed to meet the needs of small people.
The second case, No. 3 Hoy and Braal, concerns a croft which was let to a young incomer, not a farm worker but a young Englishman. Englishmen are always very welcome in my constituency, but not when they come ahead of men who have been on a long waiting list and who have been farm workers and have done the heavy work, not acting as pupils and paying for their tuition. He paid a sum for assignation. There is no doubt about this. Farmers from the area who were down here for the Smithfield Show came to see me and told me that a premium was paid for the assignation of that croft, hut was hidden in the total amount paid for improvements and livestock and crops.
I cannot prove these figures, but the best estimate I can get is that for the croft at 6, West Murkle £2,960 was paid for the cows; £450 for 15 oat stacks; £250 for 10 acres of turnips; £1,000 for implements, including one tractor, one rotovator and one binder; £400 for mill and milking plant; £50 for a shed; and £390 for young grass cultivation, a total of £5,500, leaving a remainder of £2,500. If those figures are correct. that is what was


paid for a croft into which the original man went paying only for the seed.
This sort of thing is making it quite impossible for the objects of the crofting Acts to be carried out. I take the greatest possible exception to the attitude of the Secretary of State in approving the assignations without question and to the Crofters Commission, which complained in 1959 and again in 1960. The Commission is all-powerful. The Secretary of State has power only to object to a crofter's nominee, but the Commission has the right to select a tenant and to put him in.
On 13th February, 1963 I asked the Secretary of State for Scotland a Question about these crofts. I asked
why the Government-owned Land Settlement crofts No. 3, Braal, Halkirk, and No. 6, West Murkle, Thurso, were not advertised to let; and why their assignation to men of means who paid for the assignations were approved without competition.
My right hon. Friend replied:
In neither of these two cases was the croft vacant or about to become vacant for any statutory or other reason. What was involved was a proposal by the occupants to transfer their tenancies, and, the crofts not becoming vacant in these circumstances, the question of their being advertised to let could not arise. As to the latter part of the Question, I must emphasise that where the crofter wishes to transfer his croft to another occupant. he has a statutory right to choose his own assignee, subject only to the consent of the Crofters' Commission.
My supplementary question was:
Why does the other occupant have to be a man of means and not a farm worker, for whom all crofts and land holdings in the Highlands of Scotland were designed? Why did he as Secretary of State approve of the principle of the highest bidder, a man who paid £8,000 for one of these crofts, of which £2,500 was for the assignation? He bought himself into a croft in perpetuity. as long as his family lasts. This is something which must be dealt with by the House.
My right hon. Friend said:
My hon. Friend is mistaken in one respect, namely, when he says that I approve of the assignation. I have no such power. I agree with him that there may be a problem here in which perhaps it would be wise for me to consult the Commission to see whether it is more widespread than in this one area, and I will do that."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 13th February, 1963, Vol. 671, c. 1297.]
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) then asked a supplementary question, which I hope will be dealt with tonight.
In the A. D. Sutherland case, when the Secretary of State objected, the Crofters Commission fell into line immediately. What the boss wanted came about. The kind of man for whom the croft was intended does not get it. When the moneyed people buy the assignations, which it was never intended in circumstances under any Crofting Act should take place, the Secretary of State does not object, nor does the Crofters Commission. They are both guilty, and it is the duty of this House to see that this stops, and stops quickly.

10.23 p.m.

The Under-Secretary a State for Scotland (Mr. R. Brooman-White): I have a little over five minutes in which to reply to all these important points. I know that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) wants to get into the debate, and if I can manage to telescope my remarks to allow him a minute at the end I will do so.
I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) will realise my reasons if I abbreviate what I have to say. My hon. Friend's main worry is that some crofts may be going to people who can afford to pay more for them rather than to those who need them most. We checked up on what has been happening with croft-lettings during the past seven years in my hon. Friend's constituency. During that time 16 crofts have become vacant. They have been re-let as follows: 10 to crofters, three to farm workers, one to a farmer's son, one to a small farmer, and one to an ex-Service man with previous wide experience in agriculture. Therefore, without saying that everything is perfect in our arrangements—these are difficult arrangements to make—we can claim that at least there is nothing widely wrong with the type or category of people who have been getting crofts in my hon. Friend's area.
I know that my hon. Friend appreciates this, but I will say it for general information. In his area there are certain special difficulties. There are about 2,000 crofts in Scotland in the hands of the Secretary of State. These vary from very small ones of one acre to what are in fact viable small farm units of 50–100 acres of arable land and sometimes 2,000 acres of grazing. The small crofts are


on the West Coast and the larger ones are mainly in Caithness and Easter Ross.
When it comes to the assignation of these larger crofts, the successful applicant must necessarily be not only a person of good farming experience but also a man with some capital. He must have the sort of capital needed by somebody who would be prepared to take on a small farm and run it successfully, because that is what he is going to do.
These large crofts are legally crofts, but economically, the running of them, as my hon. Friend appreciates, makes the same sort of demand as would a small farm. I know that my hon. Friend will agree that when a large croft changes hands, it should come into the hands of a person with sufficient capital to pay a reasonable price for the stock, buildings and equipment and have sufficient money to run the place properly when established. I do not think that that point is at issue.
Then comes the difficult question of whether the outgoing occupant, the previous holder, should be entitled, as he is now, to ask something more than a pretty strict valuation of the assets as they stand. If someone offers a fairly generous price to the outgoing tenant for the assignation, should the outgoing tenant remain free, as at present, to accept the offer, subject to the agreement of the Commission as to the suitability of the applicant to hold the croft?
As my hon. Friend pointed out, the law which was passed by this House in 1955, and not materially altered in 1961, is quite clear. A crofter who wishes to give up his croft as opposed to a case where the lease is automatically terminated for some reason or another, is, under the existing law, a person with the right to pass it on to whoever he chooses, the only limitation being the right of the Commission to veto the choice if, for example, it considers that the person chosen is not a competent person to run the croft efficiently. When the 1961 Act was being passed no one suggested that there should be any bar to a sitting crofter securing the best offer that he could for his croft, if he decided that he wished to hand it on to someone else. That is a right of the sitting crofter which one would be very hesitant to restrict. My hon. Friend appreciates the importance

of this and he has on occasions argued in favour of the small crofter exercising this right. It is not a question of principle, it is a question of being reasonable.
No one wishes to restrict the right of a sitting crofter. Equally, no one wants crofts to change hands at unreasonable prices simply because there may be a considerable demand for them. The Commission has mentioned this problem in previous Reports. On 13th February my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that he would ask the Commission about this matter. We were told by the Commission that from recent experience, and from limited information available, it appeared that this practice of virtually selling a croft to the highest bidder still continued. But it did not seem to the Commission that the problem was acute throughout the crofting counties. The Commission has said that it will continue to watch the situation and will not hesitate to make the appropriate recommendation for legislative action should it think that necessary. So much for the financial point.
On the question of the crofts falling vacant the general arrangement is that any croft owned by the State has to be advertised. We select the applicant whom we think most suitable and inform the Commission. The final responsibility rests with the Commission. The proceedings are similar in the case of a privately-owned croft. But I must make clear that in cases where the tenancy is to be terminated it would he wrong for the holder to suggest to anyone that he had any say about who his successor should be.
If anyone moves into such a croft when it is terminated, and before it has been advertised or he has been selected, or before the selection has been endorsed by the Commission, he would be gambling with his chance of being deemed the most suitable applicant. It might turn out that he was. But it might also turn out that he was not, and in that event he would have no ground for protest or complaint. He would have to give way to the person who had been selected as having the better claim.
In reply to the question by my lion. Friend regarding the West Murkle case, it was found that the applicant for the croft, the proposed assignee, was the most


suitable person, and his name has been submitted to the Commission for its consideration.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. James H. Hoy: I wish to tell the Under-Secretary that the reply he has given is not very satisfactory. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) has done a first-class job by raising this subject which has been referred to in successive Reports of the Commission. Allegations have been made that the assignations have been becoming so high that

unless an applicant had a considerable sum of money he had little chance of securing a croft. The whole purpose of the Act is destroyed when it is necessary to ask an applicant for a croft to spend £8,000 on security—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-nine minutes to Eleven o'clock.